Age is just a Number, Right?

Following a season of retirement, Andy Pettitte will return to the Yankees for the second time in his career.  He will be starting in the minors with the expectation that he will return to the majors shortly into the season.  Andy’s career has been defined by his time with the Yankees.  Close to a career Yankee, he notably left the organization for a brief stint with the Astros, only to return three seasons later.  The return only strengthened his appeal to fans and perhaps this is part of the management’s plan.

If we look at the Yankees starting pitching staff, there seems to be a good amount of talent.  Sebathia, Hughes, Pineda, and Nova all have respectable numbers (don’t put too much weight on Nova’s spring) and with other possible starters such as Kuroda and Garcia, there doesn’t seem to be much room for Pettitte on the roster.  But reports from training have all been alarmingly positive- Pettitte seems to be on top of his game.  He could experience a renaissance in the twilight of his career.  Honestly though, how often do you bring back a forty year old to pitch in the majors? 

While I love Pettitte as much as any Yankee fan, I cannot help but feel that this is somewhat of a publicity stunt.  Yes, there is a good chance that he can still pitch at the big league level as well as offer wisdom to younger players, but there are obvious counterpoints to both ideas.  As previously stated, the Yankees have as many talented arms as any team, and they also have leaders.  Mo has experienced as much as anybody, not to mention, they don’t exactly have a roster of rookies. 

So maybe bringing him back is an attempt to rally fans back to the stadium.  After analyzing “The Great American Novel,” it seems that anyone is cut out to play baseball.  Next to a group of amputees and little people, a forty year old returning to the game doesn’t seem the slightest bit farfetched.  And in all reality, it’s not; it’s only odd considering the amount of talent already assembled.  Ultimately, I assume Pettitte just misses the game and that he is not a Yankees’ attempt at a modern Eddie Gaedel/Bob Yamm.  Whatever the management’s intentions are, Pettitte’s are simple and pure: just a desire to play ball.  Ain’t nothing wrong with it.

Did You See That?

And now the MLB wants to extend the powers of instant replay.  Hopefully, someday, baseball will be just like football and we can halt the game and focus in on every little detail of every play to determine how to best call it.  Please, cut this out and let us just play baseball the way it was meant to be played- with bad calls. 

I guess you can call me a purist- if my sense of baseball purity is based on the rules when I was born.  The game is constantly changing, that is a fact.  Whether it is the rules, the style, the gear, the drugs, etc, the game has changed greatly since its conception.  But at some point, mustn’t a line be drawn? 

When instant replay first entered the game in 2008 I was not pleased.  It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why this is.  It’s not that I don’t want the game to be more fair- although, it doesn’t really become fairer with instant replay, everyone plays with the same umpires- but that’s not it.  No, I just want baseball to maintain its traditional spirit. 

Baseball operates outside the confines that control all other sports.  If you look at every other (popular) professional sport, there is a projectile that makes its way up and down a rectangular plane with some method of scoring at either end (with the exception of cricket (which I have no understanding of) and golf, which is a great game, but not a sport.  Nascar is neither.).  Baseball embodies America in a way these games cannot: there is no time constraint- a game can go on infinitely, a homerun literally leaves the game, the concept of “stealing” is present…there is true freedom in baseball.

The rigid rules in other sports rob the game of freedom- there is a set of laws that cannot be evaded.  In baseball, you can get lucky or unlucky with a bad call.  It is the nature of the game.  This aspect of the game gives it life, after all, that is life.  We all must deal with the chaotic power of luck and if we all love baseball because of its relationship to our lives, then why would we want to destroy that aspect?  Even if you disagree with this philosophy, you can still see how far instant replay could go; maybe one day we can replay every single pitch of every at bat.  Wouldn’t that be nice?