The Game sounds better with real wood

This is definitely the best time of year. The whole world wakes up at this time, trees are budding, and the azaleas are in bloom. And in most parts of the country, you can hear the whack of wooden stick hitting ball.

If you’re a baseball junkie like I am, that last part means life begins again.

Admittedly, I’m a traditionalist when it comes to baseball. A few days ago I was listening to a game – the collegiate version, that is. The University of South Carolina Gamecocks – to my friends out west, that’s what we mean when we say USC – and over the radio you can hear the collision of bat and ball.

Not a “whack,” though. More like a “pling.”

It took me a while to figure out this strange noise. While I tend to be something of a thinker, often pondering questions that would put Socrates in a tizzy, nothing seemed more important at that moment than the “pling.” Right then, that “pling” became symbolic of Western civilization’s decline and eventual fall. I got over that, though I still have to get used to the idea of aluminum bats in our national sport. It seems, well, un-American. A travesty. An infiltration by Commies, if you will.

Did I mention I’m quite traditional about baseball?

I’m not alone here. One of our day’s great pundits and thinkers, George Will, is also a baseball nut. He wrote great books on the sport, and like me, considers the aluminum bat as some sort of mutant that you hope stays contained like a bad virus.

Pitchers, it seems, have lost the fine art of pitching to the inside half of the plate since bats went to aluminum. Pitching inside is a great intimidation move (and probably verboten in our politically-correct society), but more importantly, Will argues it’s become an ineffective tactic at the college level.

On the wooden bat, there’s a “sweet spot” that gives you maximum leverage and power on the ball. It’s a small part of the bat, and if the pitcher jams the hitter with inside stuff. The best the hitter can do then is get the pitch on the handle of the bat, away from that sweet spot. A home-run swing then produces a lazy fly ball, and a line-drive stroke produces an easily-handled infield play. Pitching inside is good strategy.

With the aluminum bat, it’s all sweet spot. It doesn’t matter which part of the bat strikes the ball. Everyone suddenly hits like Barry Bonds. You can’t neutralize a good hitter by jamming him, so pitchers end up learning that tactic in the minor leagues. That is, if they ever do learn it.

I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Angels fan. I’m dating myself here because I remember them as the Los Angeles Angels without the “of Anaheim” tag. Back then, they shared digs with the Dodgers, and you can always tell where a California baseball fan’s loyalties were by what he called the stadium. To us, it was Chavez Ravine, while those Dodgers fans referred to it then – as they do now – as Dodger Stadium.

Baseball is a tough sell in our no-subtlety, sound-bite, instant-gratification society. It’s too slow, folks say. No action like football, where tons of linemen-on-the-hoof collide every few seconds. And to the obtuse, this is a good argument.

But the knowing baseball fan will tell you much of the real action is mental. Although there may not be many engineering degrees or rocket scientists in the major leagues – former manager Mayo Smith once said that if you split open a player’s skull you’d find a jazz band and two or three women – the battle between pitcher and batter is really a chess game. Each one is trying to figure out the other, and the fielders are also trying to size up the matchup. The pitcher is remembering that the guy at bat was badly fooled by a slow curve last time up – should he try it again and get lucky? The batter, meanwhile, notices the pitcher may be getting a little fatigued, thinking maybe the fastball wouldn’t be as fast or have as much movement. As it is in war, everything else being equal, the one with the best information will usually be the one to win the battle.

Which is why I’m no fan of the designated hitter rule that the American League (home of the Angels) uses. Pitchers aren’t supposed to be able to hit, and going to a pinch hitter may be a good strategic move but then you’d have to replace your pitcher who may be mowing down the opposition. Do you stay with your pitcher and close your eyes as he attempts to swing the bat, or do you gamble on a) the better hitter and b) a relief pitcher? The designated hitter rule takes that strategy away, an attempt to replace some of the less-exciting brain work with more action. Hey, football (which I also like) is a made-for-TV sport; must they try to do that with baseball, too?

Don’t even get me started on another game “innovation,” interleague play. Suffice it to say, I turn the radio off and skip over the sport’s section’s baseball scores when interleague games are playing. Much as I love the sport, I don’t recognize alien powers. And the revamped playoff schedule still sets me off, even though the Angels got to the playoffs for the 2002 World Series as a wild-card team. Even though my team was a beneficiary, I still don’t have to like it.

But in late March and early April, all these objections are forgotten. I don’t even think about multi-million-dollar contracts or players trying to decide between the clear and the cream. None of that matters. It’s that time of year.

Play ball!