Yes, I love the numbers of the sport...but I also love the look of the game-the geometric precision of the layout of the diamond, the sheer speed of fastballs, the grace of a Cole Hamels delivery-and the game's personalities.
Baseball has always been home to out-sized personalities, whether of an ugly sort-think Ty Cobb or Rogers Hornsby-or lovable-think Babe Ruth, or Yogi Berra.
Yogi was famous for "malaprops", as it's often said, but what he actually did is reduce the language to its most direct form. "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." "You can't think and hit at the same time." Direct, and true.
Plus, of course, like Lincoln (another deep thinker), a lot of what's been attributed to Berra he never actually uttered. Yogi even "wrote" a book called "I Really Didn't Say Everything I Said!", which is a fun read, by the way.
So Berra may never have actually said the following, but it's so perfect, I've got to quote it: When told Dublin had elected its first Jewish Mayor (Robert Briscoe, in 1956), Berra said, "Only in America!".
Thus extolling truths about America, as every good American should, even when America's not actually involved.
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