[originaltext] There are people in Italy who can’t stand soccer. Not all Cana

There are people in Italy who can’t stand soccer. Not all Canadians love hockey. A similar situation exists in America, where there are those individuals you may be one of them who yawn or even frown when somebody mentions baseball." Baseball, to them, means boring hours watching grown men in funny tight outfits, standing around in a field, staring away, while very little of anything happens". They tell you it’s a game better suited to the 19(上标)th century, slow, quiet, and gentlemanly. These are the same people you may be one of them who love football because there’s the sport that glorifies" the hit".
    By contrast, baseball seems abstract, cool, silent, still. On TV the game is broken into a dozen perspectives, replays, close-ups. The geometry of the game, however, is essential to understanding it. You will study the game from one point as a painter does his subject; you may, of course, project yourself into the game. It is in this projection that the game affords so much space and time for involvement. The TV won’t do it for you.
   The skeptic and innocent must play the game. And this involvement in the stands is no more intellectual than listening to music. Smooth the dirt in front of you with one foot; smooth the pocket in your glove; watch the eyes of the batter, the speed of the bat, the sound of horsehide on wood. If football is a symphony of movement and theatre, baseball is chamber music, a spacious combination of notes, chores and responses.