Ball

Baseball, to the uninitiated, is a peculiar game. It is really most of the childhood games merged into a gritty ballet, performed by highly paid and talented athletes. Run. Jump. Tag. Throw. Catch. Hit. Gesture. Count. Add. The rest of it is statistics. Yet it holds its own in the drama department. As a pantomime of ritual, it is only rivaled by its cousin, cricket; about half the world is into it, The West and parts of the Far East, with a smattering of interest elsewhere. My hometown team, the Minnesota Twins, has reached the playoffs with a cobbled-together team that, despite injuries and inexperience, has exceeded all expectations and reached the end of the season in first place. With so many stories of sports "stars" behaving badly, so far these Twins have been model citizens off the field. On the field, they have given the masses something to rejoice in, a way to forget the woes that beset us all in our daily lives. That is an accomplishment worthy of note.