Sleepy, west coast baseball

The comforts of a quiet game, the promise of something exciting happening at any moment.

Aug 27, 2024

There's a certain calm that comes with watching west coast baseball games. As part of the rhythm of the long regular season, the pacific coast match-ups are just reaching the middle innings when many fans are already in bed. Even when there is a raucous crowd, these games just feel a little quieter.

Living in the central time zone myself, I often put the late night games on while I'm falling asleep. Sometimes I listen on the radio. Sometimes I defy the advice of every single person who has insights about a good night's sleep and watch on TV. It is comforting in either case.

For a long time, I've been interested in how different these games feel. If you watched the Red Sox play the Yankees and then watched the Rockies play at the Padres on the same night, you might think you are watching two different leagues altogether. But those sleepy west coast games count just as much as those that precede them on any given night.

Like so many things in baseball, these settings allow for some meditations on the passage of time. Take Dodgers Stadium: at some point this year, there will be buzz, there will be hype, there will be all eyes on that park for playoff baseball. At least that seems inevitable, and has for many seasons now. All of that activity will occupy the same space that hosted a number of quiet games, at least relatively speaking, on the journey from beginning to end of the season.

At least for a certain segment of the population, gauging the noise and activity during a game provides a glimpse of where we are on the calendar.

In today's Kanefabe Newsletter:

How west coast baseball feels different, with a dose of Shohei Ohtani appreciation thrown in. Plus, a team that makes momentum feel real and some baseball fashion.

I'm glad you're here. On we go.

While most people are sleeping

The night of Friday, August 23, I fell asleep with the Dodgers game on in the background. I remember three details from the last few minutes that I was awake.

The first is that the organ played the familiar tune for the fans to chant "CHARGE!" You know the one. It made me think of my grandpa, who passed away earlier this year. He loved baseball, and even if we didn't talk about it often, that was always a connection point for the two of us.

More than any conversation about specific teams and players, I remember talking to him about fans yelling "CHARGE" at baseball games.

"It's baseball," he said with a chuckle. "Charge? Where will they go?"

So, I always smile when the organist plays that tune.

Second, I know the score was tied 3-3.

Third, I know the last thing I saw on the TV before I feel asleep. It was Shohei Ohtani jogging off the field after grounding out to end an inning. I was dozing on and off, so I didn't see the actual play. I thought to myself, "Oh, too bad, I missed an Ohtani at-bat."

If only I knew.

The Dodgers beat the Rays 7-3 on Friday, August 23. Here's how the game ended.

Maybe that game felt sleepy during the middle innings. You might even think it was two different games if you saw a clip of the 5th or 6th inning and then saw that walk-off highlight. But once it reached the defining moments, the buzz was different. This game meant more. A discerning observer could tell you that we're getting close to the playoffs.

It helps when it's Shohei Ohtani. And it helps when he's making history; in this case, he is the fastest player to 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in MLB history.

In that sense, these relatively quiet west coast games hold something in common with every other baseball game: you're always one pitch, one swing, one moment away from everything changing. You are always on the brink of something extraordinary. Sometimes it never happens, sometimes it happens when you thought it would, and sometimes it happens when nobody would have predicted it. But that potential is always there.

That's the rhythm of baseball. That's what makes it a sport that is so full of stories, of tall tales and myths and extraordinary moments. Things can change in one pitch. Oftentimes it is a difference of inches between a hit and an out, a home run and a foul ball, a win and a loss. Things can stay quiet for a long time, for batter after batter and inning after inning, and then turn quickly become loud and exciting.

As I think about these late night games on the west coast, I think that's what stands out: the juxtaposition between the quiet moment and the exciting moment. It's there in any baseball game, but it's magnified in those settings.

Maybe that's why I like those games so much, besides the fact that they often help me fall asleep. It's just too bad I wasn't awake to see that Ohtani grand slam.

Making momentum real

Another team one might find in a late-night game on the MLB schedule is the Arizona Diamondbacks. For all of the nuances that present themselves over the course of a long baseball season, it always seemed like the question for the 2024 Diamondbacks was a simple one: is this team a real contender, or was their run to the 2023 World Series a fluke?

Arizona's playoff success last season seemed like more of a "lightning in a bottle" situation, at least based on an initial look at their regular season performance and the way they snuck into the playoffs as a wild card team. The counter to that argument might have been that this was simply the launching point for sustained success. More good times were ahead, if you were inclined to believe this version of events.

One way or another, the 2024 regular season would start to answer the "real or not" question. And for the first half, it looked like it was a "not," with the Diamondbacks returning to the mess of mediocrity in the middle of the standings. They dealt with some injuries, some underachievers, and probably some of the randomness that accompanies any given season. The 2023 National League pennant seemed to be falling on the fluky side of things.

As we approach September, however, the Diamondbacks are making a strong case that this is a contending team that is here to stay. On the day I'm writing this newsletter, they have a firm grasp on a wild card spot and sit just 3.0 games behind the Dodgers for first place in the NL West.

Besides the numbers and underlying reasons for this turnaround - Ketel Marte has been great all season, Corbin Carroll is playing better, their pitching is getting healthier - there's a specific kind of credibility that feels like it's taking hold if you zoom out and consider this team.

If these Diamondbacks generate some momentum, they have the ability to capitalize on it and turn it into sustained success. That's the kind of thing that can measured but also not measured. There are baseball reasons for Arizona's rise in the standings, but it also feels like those other things are happening like they did in last year's playoffs: the vibe or the gut feeling or the belief, whatever you want to call it.

These explanations fall on the softer side of things. These factors can be frustrating, and you can never really prove their impact. But they are also central to what makes sports so fun.

If nothing else, this Diamondbacks team is fun.

Never too late to look good

Ryan Pepiot and Bryce Miller squared off as the starting pitchers in Monday night’s game between the Rays and Mariners in Seattle. Both are highly touted talents. It was Miller, one of many excellent starting pitchers on this year’s otherwise disappointing Mariners, who turned in the dominant performance as Seattle won 5-1.

But we’re not here to talk about that. We’re here to talk about a couple well-dressed boys.

Miller has a gentleman’s mustache, complemented perfectly on this night by some perfectly ridiculous gold chains.

As for Pepiot, he wore some of the finest looking tall socks that you’ll ever see on a baseball diamond.

Even in a sleepy, west coast game, in this case between two teams going through strange seasons, it’s never too late to look good.