Baseball is a sport that is loved throughout the entire United States of America. People are willing to drive hours for a game or pay hundreds of dollars for a ticket to a playoff or World Series game.
Baseball has been continuously played since 1846, and support of the sport will not end anytime soon. You have to wonder though why people love the game so much. It is an extremely unpredictable sport and is very stressful at times.
Whether you play the game or just enjoy watching it, you know how fast a team can lose their lead in the game.
Case in point: It's currently playoff season for the World Series, and the other night during a Dodgers vs. Braves game, the Braves hit a Grand Slam after a solo home run and gained a 5-0 lead.
However, a few innings later, the Dodgers came back and tied the Braves 5-5. Just like that, the lead was gone. That is truly how unpredictable the sport of baseball is. A team is never safe unless the lead is absolutely enormous.
Last year's World Series was also a roller coaster ride. The Houston Astros vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers. The wins and losses went back and forth like a teeter-totter. Finally, it was game seven. Dodger's manager decides to put Yu Darvish as the starting pitcher for the final game.
No one in the stands or at home could have predicted the outcome of that baseball game because the teams had been so even throughout the series. However, they also could not have predicted that Darvish would choke under the immense pressure and throw the game away for the LA Dodgers.
One final factor that makes baseball unpredictable is how a player can be put on the disabled list at any point during the season or the year. Injuries are so common in the major leagues and can be caused by any number of factors.
Personally, coming from southern California, my favorite team is the Los Angeles Dodgers. I had the opportunity of traveling to Arizona this year for Spring Training 2018 this year where I watched three games. During one of the games against the Oakland Athletics, one of our best players, Justin Turner, was hit in the wrist by a pitch.
This was absolutely horrible timing since Opening Day was only nine short days away. Turner didn't expect to get hit by a pitch in the first inning of the game, but it is an unpredictable risk that comes with playing major league or minor league baseball.
Of course, playing baseball can lead to somewhat expected injuries just like Dodgers' Corey Seager's Tommy John Surgery, but he was not expecting that he would also have to have hip surgery in the same exact year and time frame.
All in all, baseball is an incredibly unpredictable sport, but maybe that's why America keeps coming back for more.
