Quote Originally Posted by NYCBlue View Post
If you're not into baseball or don't really understand it, don't bother. It's a long night. And expensive. Oracle Park is nice though. Home runs can go out of the park and into the bay.
I've been to many American baseball games. Obviously, it helps if you understand what's going on. Baseball is a very studied, mathematical game, advancing through nine innings, three outs per innings, four balls or three strikes on each batter. It's slow but methodical, a bit like cricket in that sense. When I go I usually take a book, and glance up when things get scary, like when the pitcher is trying to dig out of a bases loaded, no-outs situation, always interesting.

And then there are the oddities. I took my dad to a game once and he wanted to know why the pitcher deliberately threw the batter four balls (bads), thus conceding first base. "He walked him," I said. "What's that?" "He's a very good hitter, and they're afraid that if they throw him something he can hit, he'll hit it out of the park. So they gave up first base instead of potentially something worse."

He was amazed. Thought it was cheating.