Baseball is Very Long When You’re Lonely

With the Super Bowl, the truest American holiday, coming up tomorrow, The New York Times sat down with writers Donald Antrim (who wrote my favorite passage on pancakes that could ever be penned) Chad Harbach, and Susan Orleans to discuss sports. With Harbach, author of The Art of Fielding, in attendance, the conversation inevitably shifted to baseball:

N.Y.T. What is it about baseball so many writers find appealing?

S. O. It’s lonely. That makes it more poetic.

C. H. Baseball is lonely — it’s a team sport, of course, but it puts each player on the team in difficult, isolated situations. It’s also a slow, contemplative game, with a lot of gaps and spaces for reflection, which suits most writers.

S. O. I can’t imagine a more lonely moment than being at bat, with thousands of people watching my attempt to hit a tiny ball.

So the next time you’re sitting alone in your apartment, blogging and tweeting about baseball, remember that the ballplayers are pretty lonely themselves.

(Thanks to my good pal Matt Masuzzo for sending the article my way. Since he hates the internet, he has no internet home for me to supply a link.)