Infinite mindset, as Simon Sinek puts it, is definitely a draw for the players. One good hit or win brings you back for more, even if it takes weeks or months to see future success.
As a soccer player, the language of lore resonates too. Messi is a wizard with his left foot, the GOAT so to speak. One day he’ll get remembered like some of my attendings - the guy who ‘memorized Harrison’s’
Is it true? Doesn’t matter. Makes the game fun.
Moreover, moves are named after players long gone (‘the beckenbauer’ which I passed on to my son’s team on Saturday) - not unlike the eponyms we struggle to shake that remind us about some triad or pentad. Many were better doctors than people. Prob true for some athletes as well.
This one was especially fun to read. Thanks for re-sharing!
Thanks for this. Just like the first crocus I see, I feel rejuvenated when spring training arrives. Baseball is the only sport that you can listen to on the radio. That is due to the pace of the game and the pauses. The pauses allow one to think about strategy (like I might need to do in a patient encounter) and also allow the radio commentators to paint a picture or tell a story (Red Barber and Mel Allen for me). The pauses are valuable just like the rests between notes and the silence in the doctor-patient encounter
Great piece. I used to dread those “history” sessions that were taped and reviewed later, or where your classmates were watching you on the other side of a one-way mirror. At any level, nobody wants to look like a knob before their peers.
However, I gotta say watching baseball for me is akin to watching paint dry (the last World Series being a notable exception).
Terrific piece! Agree about Joe Posnanski's Why We Love Baseball, which is sensational. His Baseball 100 is also pretty great. In fact, pretty much everything Joe writes falls into this "great" category -- enough so that I forgive that he is a passionate hater of the New York Yankees (a very commonly held view).
Adam, I too love baseball. I live in San Diego and root for two teams: the Padres and whoever is playing the Dodgers.😁
There’s a book “Great Jews in Sports“ – Koufax always had a clause in his contracts that if his place in the rotation came on Yom Kippur, he had the option of not pitching that day. Drysdale followed Koufax in the rotation, so he pitched that day when the Dodgers were not in contention.
He stunk up the place (unusual for Drysdale) gave up 5+ runs early in the game and Alston (the manager of 19 one year contracts) came to take Drysdale out he handed him the ball and said, “Walter, I bet you wish I was Jewish too” The Lore of baseball is priceless.
I so look forward to this now yearly piece. As a Canadian growing up without a local baseball team, and, more importantly with a British father profoundly disinterested in sports, I came to baseball very late, when my son became old enough to fall in love with it. Alas, it was the White Sox who captured our hearts and whose players and management still serve as the catalyst of so many of our conversations after more than 20 years.
Until I read this piece for the first time, I had thought that I was the only one whose pulse quickened so, to “pitchers and catchers report.” I try to listen (on the radio) to at least part of every game during the season, repeating the unfamiliar actions of the boys in my cabin the year I went to summer camp in Wisconsin. Listening to a good broadcaster call the game is still the best way to see the action in my mind.
Thank you, Adam, harbinger of spring and the fleeting joys of summer.
Major respect to you for regularly tracking the Cubs games on radio. You probably know this, but for not terribly too much money (“You’re a doctor!”), you can sign up to stream almost all the games on TV via month.com.
For me it’s more about nostalgia. After med school, kids, work etc baseball fell off the list of passions. But I’ll never forget my childhood memories of running out to grab the newspaper to see the updates of the nightly stats and the feeling of seeing that Don Mattingly had another 4 for 4 night to bring his average up above .350 mark. Maybe when life slows down the passion will re-emerge!
Wonderful! (although I have zero interest in baseball). Personal happiness comes from caring about something outside of ourselves (and our inner circle). Bill Wilson discovered that when an alcoholic looks outside himself and tries to help another alcoholic, it is the key to his own recovery.
Infinite mindset, as Simon Sinek puts it, is definitely a draw for the players. One good hit or win brings you back for more, even if it takes weeks or months to see future success.
As a soccer player, the language of lore resonates too. Messi is a wizard with his left foot, the GOAT so to speak. One day he’ll get remembered like some of my attendings - the guy who ‘memorized Harrison’s’
Is it true? Doesn’t matter. Makes the game fun.
Moreover, moves are named after players long gone (‘the beckenbauer’ which I passed on to my son’s team on Saturday) - not unlike the eponyms we struggle to shake that remind us about some triad or pentad. Many were better doctors than people. Prob true for some athletes as well.
This one was especially fun to read. Thanks for re-sharing!
https://feinmantheother.com/2011/09/23/the-nutrition-mess-lessons-from-moneyball/#comments
Baseball is like church. Many attend. Few understand.
— Leo Durocher.
Adam
Thanks for this. Just like the first crocus I see, I feel rejuvenated when spring training arrives. Baseball is the only sport that you can listen to on the radio. That is due to the pace of the game and the pauses. The pauses allow one to think about strategy (like I might need to do in a patient encounter) and also allow the radio commentators to paint a picture or tell a story (Red Barber and Mel Allen for me). The pauses are valuable just like the rests between notes and the silence in the doctor-patient encounter
Great piece. I used to dread those “history” sessions that were taped and reviewed later, or where your classmates were watching you on the other side of a one-way mirror. At any level, nobody wants to look like a knob before their peers.
However, I gotta say watching baseball for me is akin to watching paint dry (the last World Series being a notable exception).
Terrific piece! Agree about Joe Posnanski's Why We Love Baseball, which is sensational. His Baseball 100 is also pretty great. In fact, pretty much everything Joe writes falls into this "great" category -- enough so that I forgive that he is a passionate hater of the New York Yankees (a very commonly held view).
Adam, I too love baseball. I live in San Diego and root for two teams: the Padres and whoever is playing the Dodgers.😁
There’s a book “Great Jews in Sports“ – Koufax always had a clause in his contracts that if his place in the rotation came on Yom Kippur, he had the option of not pitching that day. Drysdale followed Koufax in the rotation, so he pitched that day when the Dodgers were not in contention.
He stunk up the place (unusual for Drysdale) gave up 5+ runs early in the game and Alston (the manager of 19 one year contracts) came to take Drysdale out he handed him the ball and said, “Walter, I bet you wish I was Jewish too” The Lore of baseball is priceless.
Ben Hourani MD MBA.
What a great story.
--A
I so look forward to this now yearly piece. As a Canadian growing up without a local baseball team, and, more importantly with a British father profoundly disinterested in sports, I came to baseball very late, when my son became old enough to fall in love with it. Alas, it was the White Sox who captured our hearts and whose players and management still serve as the catalyst of so many of our conversations after more than 20 years.
Until I read this piece for the first time, I had thought that I was the only one whose pulse quickened so, to “pitchers and catchers report.” I try to listen (on the radio) to at least part of every game during the season, repeating the unfamiliar actions of the boys in my cabin the year I went to summer camp in Wisconsin. Listening to a good broadcaster call the game is still the best way to see the action in my mind.
Thank you, Adam, harbinger of spring and the fleeting joys of summer.
The White Sox have been a REALLY tough root of late. IT WILL GET BETTER!
From your mouth to God’s ears!
Beautiful
Major respect to you for regularly tracking the Cubs games on radio. You probably know this, but for not terribly too much money (“You’re a doctor!”), you can sign up to stream almost all the games on TV via month.com.
Darn autocorrect. Mlbtv.com.
For me it’s more about nostalgia. After med school, kids, work etc baseball fell off the list of passions. But I’ll never forget my childhood memories of running out to grab the newspaper to see the updates of the nightly stats and the feeling of seeing that Don Mattingly had another 4 for 4 night to bring his average up above .350 mark. Maybe when life slows down the passion will re-emerge!
How can you not be romantic about baseball?
It’s a highly technical game, but its grace and beauty are apparent when you see it played well.
Doctoring is the same — which is why we physicians all have clinician heroes we aspire to be like.
Great piece, Adam!
Wonderful! (although I have zero interest in baseball). Personal happiness comes from caring about something outside of ourselves (and our inner circle). Bill Wilson discovered that when an alcoholic looks outside himself and tries to help another alcoholic, it is the key to his own recovery.
Field of Dreams. Archibald "Moonlight" Graham, who was a doctor.