All dozen of you who consistently read the sports section of The Crimson White are familiar with Jason Galloway’s tremendous love for Alabama gymnastics, developed over several years of covering Sarah Patterson’s fantastic program. While worth a small snicker, it makes the job of following the team for the entire season seem far better than work.

So it is with baseball and myself. As a former high school player at Spain Park High School, I lived and breathed the sport every day for four years. The smell of fresh-cut grass and the coarseness of the dirt are sensations that have never left and can never leave. The exhilaration of a warning track double or a diving snag of a line drive was unmatched.

But after my time on the diamond was done, I started to appreciate something relatively unfamiliar to me: a good view from the stands. And in doing so, I began to realize a comforting truth.

Baseball really is the ultimate spectator sport, defined by an even keel, fantastic weather and a feel for history that is just lacking in other sports. The phrase “national pastime” has only been applied to one sport, a game that is the definition of everything that is American. It requires preparation, steady play and more than a few breaks. The season is long, but in a way that only enhances the sport’s appeal. When a baseball team makes the playoffs, you know it’s because it has earned the opportunity. Baseball is capitalism at its best.

Oh sure, there are the occasional grumblers who say that the pace is slow, and the game drags on too long, and they are entitled to their opinion. However, one thing these naysayers fail to realize is that these lulls constitute the true joy of experiencing the game. The torrid paces of football and basketball, along with the wild emotional swings that accompany them, leave little breathing room to simply enjoy the atmosphere. Fans go to the games knowing conversation will be kept at a minimum, socializing a formality for commercial breaks and timeouts between quarters.

In baseball, group interaction is a pleasure. The game can almost function as a four-hour activity to give a common thread to the conversation that interweaves between the soothing rhythm of the pitcher’s ritual at the mound, a staple of the suspicion and luck that guides the fortunes of a sport dominated by streaks and consistency.

There is peace and serenity in the repetition, like a steady metronome guiding the bow of a concert violinist. Like the bridge of a sonata, the melody builds and billows, rising up to the sharp climax of the spinning seams of the ball as it bursts from the arm of the hurler.

Here is where the die-hards like myself are given their moment of truth. The excitement builds tremendously well in the split-second between the pitch’s delivery and its arrival at home plate. Sixty feet and six inches has never undergone a longer journey than in that brief moment from dirt to dirt.

For those who will remain skeptics, I’ll keep trying to convince you. But in the meantime, I’ll be enjoying my sunny weekends at the Joe, hot dog in hand and elation in my heart, waiting for the next scoreboard shot.