In the game of baseball, an almost infinite amount of outcomes can occur whenever a hitter steps up to the plate. It is one of the most charming things about the game in general, that the potential for seeing something you’ve never seen before exists on every single pitch.
The strategy involved, by all parties, can wildly affect different outcomes. But right or wrong, it’s the hitter’s mentality that often receives the most scrutiny by observers. Is the hitter swinging for the fences? Is he putting a little extra pop into his swing, risking the biggest of whiffs in the process, but also giving him the opportunity to change the game in one swing with a deep shot? Or is he “playing it safe,” hitting for average and just trying to get on base?
The sport is littered with guys who took that “swing for the fences” mentality to extreme levels, guys like Sammy Sosa and Andres Galarraga retiring with a stat line full of both homers AND strikeouts … the ultimate feast or famine hitters.
There are many coaches who try to drill this out of guys, preaching the classic “don’t be a hero” line, and certainly the sport has plenty of space for different schools of thought on this topic. No one is exactly right or wrong, per se.
But…
I like home runs.
Therefore, I like the pursuit of home runs as well. There’s nothing quite so thrilling as a zero sum game — all or nothing — played out over the course of a couple of hours. What can I say? I respect an aggressive mentality, or perhaps more accurately, a willingness to shoot for the stars … even if failure can be the end result.
Enter “Attack of the Clones.”
Continue reading Attack of the Clones retrospective: Swinging for the fences