My interest in baseball is mainly due to my following Shohei Ohtani. For some time now, the only way I have followed the sport has been via YouTube. I have never watched a full baseball match before, mainly because it’s not a sport I follow a lot, and also the timing of the games is not convenient for the Indian audience. It so happened that on my trip to Canada, my sister bought tickets for a match between Toronto Blue Jays and Houston Astros.
So I was going to watch my first ever full baseball match live with my brother. The first impression was that the stadium looked awesome, the inside view was great and also the outside view, as it was an open stadium you can see the Toronto skyline, with the iconic CN Tower. We also had a great seat. It was right in front of the pitcher, and on the batter’s side, you could view the pitch and the batter hitting the ball very clearly.
I know most of the basic rules, but I had to google to find the full basic rules. There were still things that confused me a little. But overall the game is simple enough, the pitcher tries to get the 3 batters out per inning, and the batters try to hit. Which is quite difficult. If you know Cricket you can slightly compare this to that, but unlike that sport where the batsman has the most advantage, here the pitcher has it. Most times batters miss and/or get struck out. There are only a few very good batters who most likely can hit but even they miss.
I have not been to a Cricket match live for a long time now, but one thing similar here is the gaps in between the plays, there are so many breaks, and unlike football, the game does not flow. In my opinion, there are too many and too long a break. They tried to simulate excitement with announcers shouting and trying to cheer in each break. I am not a fan of these constant loud announcements.
I know there are lots of baseball matches, so in the regular season, these have lower stakes and it feels that way sometimes. In the end, it was a close match, the final score being 7-6. The team that lost did not seem to mind too much, and the team that won(including the home crowd) was not overjoyed. I would say when the home team did hit the home runs that was fun, those were the highlights of the game.
Overall I quite enjoyed the experience, I don’t think this is the sport I would follow closely, but it is always fun watching things live, with all the people cheering, the atmosphere is special which you will never get watching at home. I would recommend people go to live events.