Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, August 22, 1994                   TAG: 9408220061
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

I'VE ALWAYS HATED BASEBALL ANYWAY

I don't like baseball and and this has been my guilty secret for many years. You can get away with saying you don't like soccer, but disliking baseball is kind of like admitting you're a terrorist.

I'm sure the way I feel about the game goes back to the time my evil cousin - a bat-throwing sadist - got a hit and flung his brand-new Louisville Slugger, which hit me in the nose as I played catcher.

This made me very unconscious for a while and left me with the feeling that I would never play catcher again.

I have to admit I was never any good at the game. Never understood it, really.

I could hit a little but when I was in the field, I never knew enough to throw the ball to the right place on the very scant chance that I was able to field a line drive.

Phrases like the "bottom of the ninth" and "sacrifice bunt" tended to confuse me.

That's why I came to favor football - in my day a game of mindless crunching and a sport not far removed from the flying wedge and the leather helmet.

And having said all of this I worry - despite having ignored national coverage of the baseball strike that was as intense as the reporting of the Gulf War.

The fact is that people who write columns in this country are expected to love baseball.

I loved Geena Davis in that baseball movie, but that's not the same thing.

There are many columnists who know the batting averages for every player ever born on this planet. These people know about all the triple plays that have ever been made and some of them, frankly, are a little smug about it.

In addition, many intellectuals and most editorial writers are devoted to baseball and they write beautifully about it.

This bothers an aging, semi-retired, semi-hysterical reporter such as yours truly here and I would like to say that it leaves me "out in left field," but I have never understood that expression.

I identify better with "behind the eight ball" - having called for a rack or two in my time in poolrooms rarely visited by intellectuals or editorial writers.

I'm going to make an honest effort like baseball. I really am. I owe it to what's left of my career.

If it works out, I may even try to like soccer, bicycle races and figure skating.

I've always hated baseball anyway