Space and Baseball

Okay, vacation is over.

Amanda and I had a great time in Los Angeles. While we didn't catch any baseball in person, I was keeping up to date thru MLB.tv. This is the Extra Innings package that is available thru high speed internet. And it's great. I'll give a complete review of the MLB package in my next entry.

One of the highlights of the west coast trip was a visit to the Griffith Observatory. Located on the outskirts of LA on a winding mountaintop, the observatory features great sweeping views of the city. We took our obligatory photos of the massive city in the valley -- and, of course, the Hollywood sign on an adjacent mountaintop -- then went inside to the Planetarium.

I haven't been to a planetarium in years. The show that we saw was absolutely amazing and I highly recommend it. If you have any curiousity at all about astronomy, this is the best $7 show in the world. As we were all seated in our reclining seats, heads leaned back, eyes focused on the changing lightshow on the ceiling, the presentation recapped our civilization's fascination with the sky. Starting with the early theories about how the Sun was actually a flaming chariot being pulled through the sky, to the revelations of Copernicus and Gallileo, to the most modern theories about the Big Bang and the expansion of the universe, it was utterly captivating and mind-blowing.

What does this have to do with fantasy baseball? To me, there is definitely a correlation. Our ancient ancestors studied the night skies very closely and documented the movement of the moon and planets. To explain the movements in the night sky, they would create stories and, later, make predictions. They had a primitive need to put order in the chaos.

Fantasy baseball is similar. You and I don't chart the movement of Mars and Venus. But we do keep an eye on Joe Crede's slugging percentage. Our need to create order and organize has shifted from the planetary to the unnecessary. Okay, yes, it is a stretch. Instead of studying the zodiac, we study the depth of bullpens. Instead of observing a lunar eclipse, we watch how Kerry Wood transforms into a closer. We try to make predictions based on our observations -- just like they did thousands of years ago with the night sky.