I could - and probably will - study baseball forever....

There is joy that I take from baseball. I pore over the statistics of players, considering the standing of current players relative their predecessors; I wonder how players of old would fare in today’s game and vice versa. Hammerin’ Hank would still dominate; Koufax, too. So would Albert Pujols and CC Sabathia.

But what about Alex Rodriguez or Barry Bonds or Jose Canseco? All great players. All have been implicated……what might have happened if they’d played in different eras?

I love watching games, too. Much of my leisure time is spent at a ballpark or on the sofa – the Cubs and Cardinals renewing a century-old rivalry. Very little brings me more delight than watching pitchers and catchers set hitters up to fail. What beauty! A right-handed pitcher against a left-handed batter; there’s runner on first, with one out in the second inning. Pitcher and catcher know that the hitter in the seven-hole, who’s on-deck, has good speed and can make things difficult if the six-hole hitter gets on base. If he can induce a groundball, though, the pitcher will hit third in the third.

First, though, the pitcher needs to get ahead in the count. The pitcher looks in and sees one finger, pointing toward the catcher’s left thigh. He sets and fires - a fastball for a strike on the outer half of the plate. Strike one.

The hitter’s behind and knows it.

The pitcher takes the return throw from the catcher and then leans in for the next sign – two fingers – the pinkie and the ring-finger. His right foot is flush against the rubber; he sets his grip by feel. “AHH…the rounded seams!” he thinks. As he prepares to throw, he sees the catcher shift, and he fires a slider that thrown inside, off the plate, breaking down toward the hitters back foot. Ball one – but with a purpose.

The hitter is aware how close that came to hitting him, and his foot digs more softly into the dirt of the batter’s box. The hitter’s short-term memory kicks in…his brain reminds him the direction he’s just seen a ball travel. He steps out of the box and takes a deep breath.

The catcher’s four fingers wiggle. He sets up away and lowers his well-padded glove toward the earth. The pitcher sets and checks the runner over his shoulder out of the corner of his left eye, while burying the ball deep into his right hand. Wrapping his digits around the ball he feels the seams curving gently toward the heavens. He raises his left leg above the hill, turns and drives with his right and lets it fly.

The hitter sees the spin of the ball, judges it to be over the heart of the plate. He strides and swings, but, as the bat enters the hitting zone, the ball drifts down and away from him. And he’s misjudged the velocity, swinging early. He makes contact, but it’s down toward the end of the bat.

The pitcher watches as the ball is beaten into the ground…six to four to three.

Frustrated, yet respectful, the hitter takes off his helmet and hands it to his first-base coach. He’ll get three or four more chances to succeed.

Baseball is a game of controlled failure.

To many, baseball is a slow-moving. It’s boring. Two grown men playing catch, while a guy with a stick tries to hit the ball that they are throwing. I revel in the nuances of the game. Baseball is a passion for me.

But I couldn’t consider the game’s nuances without this passion to learn about them.

NANOS GIGANTIUM HUMERIS INSIDENTES

I defy anyone to find another profession that has such a direct and profound impact on every other profession as teachers do...hell, that even has half of the impact that teachers have. Yet, too often during recent years some of our national leaders have chosen to belittle the well-educated, calling them "elitists" and mocking the educational achievements of people with whom they disagree as a cheap way to try and win an argument. It is, after all, an easy way to win an argument – discredit your opponent, rather than his argument.

Aside from being sad - truly sad, attacking education is reckless, because these comments serve to minimize the importance of schools. Even more, comments like these alienate those that find joy in education from their peers.

Education offers the student the opportunity to explore; to discover areas of interest that might lead the student to make world-changing contributions. The classroom, of course, isn’t the only place that exploration takes place, but if often begins in the classroom. It’s where one is first introduced to ideas in a way that do not – YET – have any real, practical application (that time will come, though, as that student starts her career…thanks to the education). It is the place where that student learns the tools that she needs to explore…to discover… to contemplate existential questions.

Think about it. Education is the one industry that affects every other industry. Obviously, we expect doctors and nurses to be well-educated, and they are. But where did their desire to become doctors and nurses come from? These people didn’t wake up one day and *POOF!*::DOCTOR! Most likely there was a science teacher in grammar school or high school that inspired and excited that student, so that they were willing to embark on that voyage of discovery in the medical sciences. The same is true of lawyers, who probably enjoyed the precision of writing and took joy from reading. Engineers were likely fascinated by Physics. Accountants may have enjoyed both social studies and math. But these are lofty, prestigious careers that, of course, require extensive education, and, as such, that early childhood fascination wasn’t enough to get them to where they are today…it was a start, though.

What might have happened if these people weren’t introduced to those topics?

What about other jobs? When you walk into a gas station, the attendant uses basic arithmetic. The carpenter that built your house uses the same geometric principals that are discussed by Euclid and Pythagoras.

The products of education surround us. We should not mock the educated, we should embrace them….NO! We should MARVEL at them! Because where would life without the years of study and thought - and application of thought - by which we built the world.

nanos gigantium humeris insidentes:: standing on the shoulders of giants