Baseball

Any topic essay by Micah Vander Beek

The world is filled with sports. Sports are played almost everywhere you go. Soccer is played in almost every country. Basketball is gaining popularity in Europe. Football is the most watched sport in America. Rugby is basically football but played throughout the world. Baseball, America’s favorite pastime, is played all over the world, along with a similar game, cricket. Of these many world wide sports, baseball is the most mentally challenging along with some physical activity required.

Baseball requires having a strong arm and being good with hands, but no matter how hard you throw, or how good you are at fielding and catching, if you are not mentally prepared you will not do well. Mental errors in baseball usually result in missing a catch, letting a ground ball through the infield, a bad pitch, bad throws, and misjudged fly balls. Any one of these mental errors can change a game for the worst. Instead of having two outs and a runner on first, you now have one out and runners on first and third.  

Basketball is also a great sport that requires mental awareness, but requires mostly physical ability to play. Basketball does require you to know the plays, where you should be on the court, how to play your opponents on defense, and the timing of a steal. These mental requirements are usually not focussed on, basketball is usually played on split second decisions and not much thinking ahead.

Baseball requires you to think ahead to the next play. Should I throw a Curveball? Where should I throw the ball if it’s hit to me? Will the pitcher throw a Fastball, or breaking ball? Should I turn a double play? How fast is the runner? All of these things and then some should be thought about before every pitch. The game of baseball is far more complex than most people think it is.

Football is very popular and fun to play. Football requires being very physical but not much thought while playing. Football only requires you to remember specific plays for most of the offense. For the defense you have to try to figure out what the other team is going to do and stop it. In football, the people who do the most thinking are the coaches and quarterbacks.

Baseball requires all players to be aware of the amount of runs, the count, and the runners. You have to figure out what to do with the ball before the ball is hit. If the ball is hit to you it is easy, but if the ball is hit somewhere else you have to figure out how you can get involved in the play. You could back up a throw, get involved in a run down, be the cut off from the outfield, or call out what base to throw to.

Baseball also can result in being hurt or injured while playing, even though this is uncommon. The most common way of getting hurt is being hit by a pitch, or a catcher taking a foul ball to the mask. Most of the time these result in the player being rattled for a few minutes but are fine for the rest of the game. Another way of getting hurt is when the ball takes a bad hop when you try to field it and it bounces and hits your arm, leg, or anywhere else on your body. There can also be collisions because of miscommunications by fielders and they run into each other, trying to catch the same ball.

Baseball may not be considered the most fun sport to play, but it is fun to watch and easy to understand. Baseball may not require being as physically active as most other sports, but the mental readiness is needed much more in the best sport ever, baseball.