Guestblog: Wystan on Baseball

Like all sports, baseball is wonderful because it defeats attempts to take it too seriously. It's a game, it's fun as a distraction or thing to do with friends. It requires no other end than to be enjoyable. As Woody Allen puts it in Annie Hall:

ROBIN: Alvy, what is so fascinating about a group
of pituitary cases trying to stuff the ball
through a hoop?

ALVY: What's fascinating is that it's physical.
You know, it's one thing about intellectuals,
they prove that you can be absolutely brilliant
and have no idea what's going on.

See also Dana Carvey's parody of George Will (full transcript).