Spit

Let me start by saying that I love baseball, and have followed it closely most of my life. Not only did I play the game as often as I could as a kid, but I dreamed away my days in school immersed in the imaginary stats of an imaginary season of batting and pitching. By the end of the day I had batted .387 with 49 homers and 135 RBIs, but also had a 23-6 W-L record, a 1.89 ERA and had 256 SOs. I played Little League, sandlot hardball and softball in parks and on streets, stoopball, and stickball.

            I have been a baseball junkie in my time.

            But I have a problem with it lately, and this is it:

            What is it with baseball players and spitting?

            Watching a baseball game these days is like watching a gaggle of clams with legs. Spit, spit…spit, spit. Everybody does it. Even the managers and coaches do it. Even the bloody umpires do it. I keep watching hoping to see at least one single player refrain from spitting all over the show.

            It doesn’t happen. They all do it. Is it a requirement to get drafted?

            ‘What’s his spit like?’ the manager asked the scout.

            ‘Got a real good stream, good projection.’

            ‘How often?’

            ‘After almost every play.’

            ‘Sign him.’

            Can you imagine if basketball players did this? Football players?

            For one reason or another I haven’t seen a lot of baseball for awhile, partly due to 8 years living in South Africa. I got seriously into cricket there, a game vaguely similar to baseball. If cricket players sent sprays of greasy saliva all over the pitch they’d be booed off the field.

            I’ve been watching other sports with an eye to the spit. It’s understandable that athletes in indoor sports don’t spit all over their playing pitches…things could get slippery. But there’s nothing really stopping athletes in many outdoor sports from the…practice...or is it posture? The rugby World Cup is happening right now and I’ve looked for the spit. With minor exceptions I haven’t seen it. I look for it in soccer players and seem to miss good examples. I see no evidence of it in track and field. Tennis? I don’t think so.

            Maybe baseball players just have too much time on their hands (but that’s true of cricket players as well). There is a lot of tension and suspense as the innings build up. One must work one’s gums.

            Has it always been this way? I can’t seem to remember. I remember some guys back in the day with their tobacco chaw, and their salvos of brown gunge leaping from their lips. But I don’t remember the extent and pervasiveness of spitting I’m seeing in baseball now. Maybe it didn’t bother me then. I seem to remember doing a bit of spitting myself on the little league diamonds, imitating some big league player or other, I suppose.

            Bad model, that. Ugly crap. Saying that it’s a necessary consequence of some imagined need to chew some sort of sticky substance to calm the nerves won’t cut it. Somebody of authority really needs to impress upon these overpaid bozos that they are on national tv, up-close and personal.

            My wife is South African and loves sport and though she wants to enjoy baseball she can’t seem to penetrate the wall of spit. It’s sad, because it’s such a lovely game.

            Though I don’t like this word I have to use it because it fits perfectly; all this spitting is simply repulsive. Please stop.