Baseball as Metaphor
To The Editor:
In our house it is the hockey language that dominates (“Crack Of The Bat Means Changing Seasons,” April 14), but I absolutely get how baseball means so much more than a game. There is something quite magical about it… even if it is just as an indicator that warmer weather is on the way.
Meagan Frank
Manhattan
Crack of the Bat Means Changing Seasons
America’s favorite pastime and New York were made for each other
Baseball diamonds are a girl’s best friend. (Just ask Cameron Diaz and Minka Kelly.)
Although I am not a legitimate sports girl, as in I never played anything unless I was under duress from the gym teacher, I have come to think of America’s pastime as my game.
Read more
Ben for Shortstop
Yes we can put a true fan of the national pastime on the All-Star team
By Ben Krull
The league bosses have excluded me from the ballot and ESPN refuses to cover my candidacy. But if you join my write-in campaign to play in the 2010 Baseball All-Star Game, we can send a message to the establishment. Read more
My Adult Fantasy League
You may think that turning 50 has made my fantasies about playing Major League Baseball a bit implausible. But I perform like an athlete half my age.
While my studio apartment is too crowded with breakable objects for me to swing a bat like I once did in my spacious childhood bedroom, I still dive on my carpeting, snagging screaming line drives and lay down perfect squeeze bunts using my toilet plunger as my bat. Read more
Kenyon Record-Breaker
Throughout his high school career, Will Smith considered himself primarily a defensive player. He started at shortstop for four straight years at Collegiate. But when he arrived at Kenyon College, he made an important discovery about getting playing time.
“All I really wanted to do was play every day,” Smith said. “I realized that in college if you can hit, you can play.”
He ended up doing plenty of both. By the time he graduated earlier this year, he owned the all-time Kenyon batting-average record with a .410 mark and on-base percentage (OBP) at a .506 rate. Read more
Counting on Some Math Magic
Is it possible to take a frightfully complicated math problem and make it a supercool experience? Glen Whitney thinks so.
Whitney, president of the “Math Factory,” quit his hedge-fund job in Long island last fall and has devoted himself to creating the first national museum of math.
“Once I got this museum idea,” Whitney said, “it was a real hand-and-glove fit for me. Even though my hedge-fund job was exciting and fun and intellectually demanding, it was a little bit too removed. I wanted to be directly involved with benefiting people.” Read more
