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News / Clark County News

Talking Points: No-hitters make baseball enjoyable

The Columbian
Published: June 2, 2012, 5:00pm

What’s the buzz from the world of sports? Here are some items that will have people talking:

1

Say what you want about baseball — the steroid era, the child-like retaliation scenarios, the outdated unwritten rules whose violation will drive the old-school ilk bonkers.

But the truth is … there is nothing like a no-hitter.

Just examine all the other major sports. Nobody sits on edge to see if a basketball player will score a certain amount of points, if a hockey players will score a certain amount of goals, or a quarterback a certain amount of yards.

But once a pitcher begins flirting with a no-no (as well as a perfect game), the viewing public is gripped for the next two or three innings.

Their frequency is perfect, too. It’s not so often where we grow numb to it, but not so dispersed that we deny its possibility (like, say, a golfer shooting under 60, which has happened only a handful of times, and often on a Friday afternoon when nobody’s watching).

Baseball may no longer be America’s pastime, but it still has something to brag about.

2

Speaking of retaliation scenarios. Five years ago Friday, Phillip Wellman, manager of the minor-league Mississippi Braves, expressed his discontent with an umpire by: A) Completely burying home plate with dirt; B) dislodging the second and third base bags (and later walking off with them); and C) imitated a soldier performing field exercises and launched the rosin bag by the pitcher’s mound like it was a grenade.

OK … a few of these antics can be entertaining.

For more Talking Points, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/talkpoints360

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