The Popcorn Stand: The greatest game there is

I’ve been remiss to not write about the greatest game there is since the Major League Baseball season opened last week.

So even though I’m a week late, I’ll take time to write about a game in which those of us who have an attention span that lasts more than a 30-second beer commercial happen to love.

There’s a saying you can go to the ballpark to watch a baseball game every day and see something you’ve never seen before. While that’s true we already know certain things about this season.

No pitcher this year will win 30 games. That was last done by Denny McLain in 1968, 50 years ago.

No batter will hit .400. Ted Williams was the last batter to do that when he hit .406 in 1941.

As a sidenote, the sacrifice fly wasn’t part of scoring back then. If Williams had been credited with the sacrifice flies he had, his average would’ve been .420.

I’m not much of a traditionalist except for being adamant about the National League being the last league to play real baseball and it should never implement the designated hitter.

I’ve also softened on the intentional walk, although I still wish the pitcher had to throw four pitches when intentionally walking a batter with a runner at third.

You want to ban shifts, expand shifts, have a clock between pitches, limit the visits to the mound, I couldn’t care one way or the other. None of those things will change the essence of the game. Although keeping the catchers in the catchers box will solve a lot of those problems that are talked about effecting the game.

No matter what you do to try to improve the game, the manager in Bull Durham put it best when he said, “It’s a simple game, you hit the ball, you throw the ball, you catch the ball.”

Yes, baseball is the greatest game there is.

— Charles Whisnand