It’s official. Baseball is boring. The Duolingo owl said so.
During a recent lesson, it shared this opinion with me:
No me gusta el béisbol porque es aburridísimo.
I can honestly say that I’ve never felt so close to an animated bird of prey, possessed by an algorithm. But I wish it would have elaborated on what specifically about the game invites boredom. Perhaps if I were a more sophisticated Spanish student, Duo would feel free to express its whole self to me. Something like:
No me gusta el béisbol porque es aburridísimo. Mientras que el lanzador y el bateador deciden si están listos para continuar, siempre me encuentro girando el cuello 270 grados con la esperanza de encontrar algo más emocionante.
I long for the day when Duo invites me to share in its inner emotional complexity.
Se puede confiar en mí, querido búho.
Major League Baseball has a long way to go to enter the good graces of the Duolingo owl, not to mention legions of indifferent fans around the country. To their credit, baseball officials are making an effort. With the start of the 2023 season, the league is instituting rule changes to recalibrate the deadening of time on the baseball diamond. The game is changing because our perception of it will not. Come Opening Day 2023, time, as baseball fans experience it, may finally be respected.
Of all the major sports, baseball is the only one that has no clock. For most of its history, the game’s limitless time has been a point of distinction. But fan testimonials as well as weighty data-sets show that people simply do not want to subject themselves to any event that has no defined time limit. For modern humans, time must fit into a digital calendar in 15-minute increments. Smooth talkers may ask for “two minutes of our time,” but they either get zero or 15. To date, there is simply no way to enter two minutes into our calendars. Subtle wink to app developers.
Be it zero, two, 15 or whatever time span, an event must have a designated end. No surprises. Without a predetermined point of resolution, we captains of free will risk being doubled over by crippling anxiety.
I can’t remember the last time I engaged in an activity unstructured by time parameters. I am a regimented creature of habit. At 11pm, I am asleep. Exactly eight hours later, my feet hit the floor as I sit on the edge of the bed shaking off dream residue. Now that I practice Imagery Rehearsal Therapy, I no longer allow a recurring nightmare to distract me. Oh, no! I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Here it comes! A buck naked Mandy Patinkin receiving a full body scrub at a Korean spa. Everything is pink! Removing the dead skin pile next to him will require multiple wheel barrow trips.
Breathe.
Repeat the constructive statement:
“If or when I have the beginnings of the same bad dream, I will be able to instead have this much better dream with a positive outcome.”
This is my preferred dream:
In the woods, I pass a squirrel crouching at the tip of a black branch. Its tail curls above its head, making it appear to wear a toupee of its own fur. A breeze flutters the tail, and when it does, I swear I can hear a warm musical tone. Like a low, round woodwind. Tailwind, in this case. I feel myself lingering. The squirrel closes its eyes. And when they open, I am awake.
Okay, all better.
Now, on with describing my absolute adherence to schedule.
For me, morning bathroom routines never extend beyond 15 minutes. If I complete my cleanings and expulsions with time to spare, I allot those minutes to evening leisure, which has a baseline of 60 minutes. Oh, cómo me complazco.
From work to chores to eating and exercising, I jam my calendar with daily constructive events. Efficiency, friends. Our algorithmic overlords command it. We must operate in Their likeness, and so shall it be. I am uncertain why our overlords take on the elocution of ancient royalty, but may the matter remain unanswered. For I mustn’t stage protest in this moment. According to my calendar, I haven’t the time.
It’s true, I am probably one of the most efficient beings on the planet, machine or otherwise. There’s no other way to say it. When it comes to being orderly, I have no peer. And I hold no patience for what dares disrupt the orderly nature of existence.
Of course, I am not unique in this regard. All reports show that pretty much everyone adheres to a strict schedule with few, if any, ill-defined periods when time is apt to slip away like a teenager at Thanksgiving dinner.
“Where are you going, son?”
“I’m just going to microwave some gravy.”
Cue sound of back door slamming.
Time is not on our side, which is why we’ve placed it in front of us, and partitioned it into a caboodle. Here, we discover access to neat polygons of confined time-flow. We are wizards of time management, you and I. Our technology has set us in motion to exercise our god-like power to bend time to our will. We have wrestled time to the ground with the uncompromising nature of an only child and an ocean of convenience products. We claimed that drinks, soups and chewing gum receptacles should all fit into cupholders, and they do!
We may hold differences of opinion, but we are bound by the common truth that we are, above all, busy. Our time is valuable, and must not be mistreated, especially not by the likes of a game first played when the President of the United States was James K. Polk!
Every time a pitcher shakes off a sign from a catcher, I take it as a personal affront to my sovereign state as a free-thinking individual who has dinner reservations. I hereby decry all things casual in nature. Good gracious. The catcher is the defensive general and knows what is best, namely the expedient resolution of silent bickering, and a return to gameplay at a confident clip.
I suppose, underneath it all, we just want it to be over, don’t we.
¿Cuándo terminará?
Before we even leave our homes, we want it to be over. We want the drive to be over. We want to finish our drinks and snacks, and we want the spectacle to rush by us like an express train. And then we want to get out of there as fast as possible. Some of us will leave early, no matter the climactic final inning acts. And we will once again loathe the unpredictable pace of other motorists*. Once we are home, we will ask our partners and children if they had fun. And they will inevitably say yes. And we will ask them if they would like to go again. And they will look at their calendars, we will look at ours, and together we will determine what might fit into our busy schedules.
*Driving remains the one aspect of life in which we are not in control of time. This fact corrodes our psyches, and has been identified as a chief motivating factor for our growing desire to give up, generally, on everything.
