Summer, Baseball and Lessons of Observation

The National League’s Milwaukee Braves team was my hometown baseball team growing up in Wisconsin in the 1950’s and ‘60s’. Professional baseball was played at County Stadium within walking distance of my family home in the vicinity of Milwaukee’s Washington Park. One even could watch the game free from outside the park as part of the “knothole” club. Summers as a kid were spent playing “pick up” baseball at Wick Field the local municipality provided baseball fields on Vliet Street three blocks from home. It was perfect, until the Braves were moved to Atlanta by their Boston based owner in 1966. By that time, I was away in college but still felt betrayed. As an immigrant kid I had grown to love baseball, and played first base just like my hero Joe Adcock, who helped the Braves win two National League Pennants and the World Series in 1957!  

My late father, Dusan Branko Terzic, my mother Olivera and I had immigrated to the US in 1950 from a “displaced persons” camp in Germany.   My parents came from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and Dad brought with him a great love for European “football”, which we call “soccer.” He had been an excellent player even making the municipal league team in his hometown of Banja Luka while in high school.  He tried to pass his passion for the game on to me. He would take me to local soccer games organized by the ethnic soccer league in Milwaukee. Alas, I never developed his enthusiasm for the game nor talent for it. I never understood how he could find pleasure in a game where the final score could be something like 1-0.  To him a low-scoring game could still have been a “very good one.” He explained that it was necessary to watch carefully how each team moved the ball on offense and in defense. That movement was the attraction of the game. An “elegant game” he would say could be a low scoring one, but well played, nonetheless.  

However, growing up in the USA as I mentioned I preferred baseball. I played it every day as a kid all summer long. I‘d leave home in the morning on my bicycle with glove on the handlebar, baseball in my pocket and a bat over my shoulder steering one handed. If I was the oldest kid to arrive at the field, I would organize the game among my peers and younger friends. If I was among the youngest, I would wait to be selected by the older boys to fill out their team. It was great fun to play either way. 

But here is the rub. Over the years, I have been told by many foreign visitors that attending a baseball game – they found baseball boring. They claimed it had even less “action” at times than European football.  

But I quickly surmised that the incorrect opinion was based on a wrong view of the game of baseball. Baseball, when viewed correctly, is not only exciting when there is a base hit or a home run, it’s exciting on every pitch. The key to enjoying baseball, in my opinion, is to understand that each pitch is a separate and intense minidrama.  

In professional baseball, the historic batting and pitching performance records of the players, in this case, the pitcher and the batter are known and analyzed by coaches on both sides. The batter, for example, is fully briefed on the historic pitching pattern, preferences, strengths and weaknesses of the pitcher he will be facing. Similarly, the pitcher and his partner-teammate, the catcher, are both fully briefed on the preferences, strengths and weaknesses of each batter. Further, the infield and outfield players will also adjust their field positions based on the batter’s history. It is the catcher, squatting inches from the batter who will notice the subtle movements of the batter indicating where and how he believes the next pitch may be delivered. Instantly, the catcher signals the pitcher with his estimate of what kind of pitch should be delivered next and where it should cross the plate with the greatest possibility of striking out the batter.  

The pitch is the essence of the game.  

Thus, each pitch is well considered by the pitcher-catcher team before being thrown. Each throw is a test of both the skill of the catcher in reading the batters’ intention, and of the pitcher in delivering the pitch as requested. The batter too has the opportunity, almost instinctively but consciously, to adjust to the thrown pitch in the split seconds from when it leaves the pitcher’s hand and arrives at the plate. Thus, the action of each pitch and swing is a minidrama in baseball continuous throughout the game of nine innings.  

I have found that explaining baseball in these terms to foreign visitors has heightened their pleasure of attending a baseball game. Regrettably, overlooking the essence of each pitch and focusing on the need for more hits and higher scores has caused baseball to lose attraction to a young generation raised on the pace of most “action” video games.  

That’s a pity. As Yogi Berra observed “Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical.” 

The Honorable Branko Terzic is a former Commissioner on the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and State of Wisconsin Public Service Commission, in addition he served as Chairman of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe ( UNECE) Ad Hoc Group of Experts on Cleaner Electricity. He hold a BS Engineering and honorary Doctor of Sciences in Engineering (h.c.) both from the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee.

#BrankoTerzic #energy #regulations #experience #research #future #opportunity #strategy #management #people #electricity #power #milwaukee #wisconsin #milwaukeebaseball #baseballlife #baseball #displaced #Germany #Camp #Yugoslavia #Homerun #pitch #YogiBerra