With the World Cup having just ended, and it being a great success by many measures, I am once again led to reflect on my own lack of interest in soccer. It's not that I don't appreciate the athleticism involved in soccer. I do. And it’s not that I can't see the strategies unfolding. I can. But somehow it still leaves me pretty cold. Why is that?

我知道有人会说，这一切都与你的成长环境有关。这可能有一定的道理。例如，我的妻子现在热爱棒球，直到她生命的晚期才开始欣赏它真正的美丽，那是在她多年来观看了我们热爱棒球的儿子成百上千场比赛之后。她逐渐学会了通过他的眼睛看比赛。也许如果我年轻的时候多看足球比赛，多踢足球，我就会以同样的方式学会欣赏足球的真正之美。

但这个假设有一个问题。我第一次接触这项美丽的运动，实际上是相当刺激的。很久以前，在军事独裁统治时期，我是巴西AFS的一名青少年学生。我深情地记得，1972年奥运会期间，我们整个社区都守在电视机前。我记得球队每进一球时响起的欢呼声。2022世界杯F组赛程我参加的第一场足球比赛也是在巴西。这是弗拉门戈vs弗卢米嫩塞在一个拥挤的Maracanã球场。那时候体育场能容纳20万人左右。这地方摇摇欲坠。在我年轻的时候，我从来没有见过这样的事情。 That’s the kind of thing that can hook you for life. But it didn’t do that for me.

If Brazil couldn’t convert me into a fan of soccer, I suspect there must be something about the game itself that is getting in my way. My guess, and it is only that, is that soccer would be more interesting without the offside rule. That, I think, is the main thing that causes the game to be so heavily tilted in favor of the defense. Hockey (another game I seldom watch) has the same offside rule. But the pure kinetic energy of hockey makes it more interesting to watch than soccer. Of course, if you wanted to improve soccer, you couldn’t just change the offside rule. You’d probably have to introduce the equivalent of basketball’s restricted zone and lane violations to compensate. The point would be to strike a better balance between offense and defense. Every sport has to strike that balance in some way or other. How a sport does that has a lot to do with how interesting it is. It may come as heresy to those who regard soccer as perfection, but I humbly suggest the game would be more interesting, and possibly even more beautiful, with a different balance between offense and defense.

My point is not that low-scoring games are intrinsically aesthetically unpleasing as such. I love a low-scoring (American) football game, due to smash-mouth defense on both sides. I love low scoring baseball games in which two awesome pitchers match each other, pitch for pitch, and shut down great hitters on both sides. But there is a huge difference between low scoring games in baseball or American football and low scoring soccer matches. In these quintessentially American games, a low score is usually a sign that the defense has managed to impose its will on the offense. Unlike in soccer, it is hard for the defense to impose its will on the offense. And it's lovely to behold when it happens, partly becuase it is not the default state of the game. Sure, there are times when something similar happens in soccer. But in soccer, moments of imposed will defense are very rare exceptions rather than anything close to the rule.

现在让我从足球转到棒球。为了不让你一直猜我的真实感受，我现在就把最好笑的部分告诉你。如果足球应该被称为，或者至少是一项美丽的运动，那么棒球应该被称为真正美丽的运动。

我知道很多人不同意。我听一些人说过，看棒球就像看着油漆变干。说实话，说这话的人让我很吃惊。我有时怀疑他们是否真的感觉迟钝或患有注意力缺陷障碍。

Baseball is admittedly not hyperkinetic constant motion. But if hyperkinetic motion were the measure of beauty, ant colonies on their frantic search for food would be considered things of sheer beauty. Baseball is beautiful partly because it is not a sphere of relentless hyperactive motion. Instead, baseball alternates between quiet moments and explosive moments of high intensity. In this way, a baseball game is like a finely wrought symphony. Unlike with drying paint, a whole host of amazing things happens in a baseball game. Each of them rewards close attention. Each can be savored as if it were one were tasting a complex, full-bodied, well-aged wine. And these movements worth savoring come both in the quiet moments and the explosive ones.

THink of a baseball game as a series of discrete movements, many involving the exercise of high skill. The moments are often pregnant with possibility. Think of the many ways of scoring. You don't need to be near the goal or under the basket to score. You can score from any base. Think about the following not uncommon game situation. Bases loaded, 1 out, home team batting, score tied. Think of how pregnant with possibilities that situation is. Think of the many different possible outcomes there are on any given swing of the bator throw of the ball in this situation. The pitcher could strike out the batter and the runners will likely remain in place. The pitcher can walk or hit the batter and a run will score. A pass ball or a wild pitch will score a run, advance the other runners with the hitter still up. The hitter can bunt, hit a sac fly, get a single, double, triple, or home run, scoring 1, 2, 3, or 4 runs with a single swing of the bat. The hitter can hit into a double play ending the inning. The at bat can become a long struggle—with the batter fouling off pitch after pitch, working his way into a 3-2 count. And then ....?

Baseball is a game played in the subjunctive tense. It is all about managing possibilities. Get some men on base, anyway you can, and possibilities are increased. Erase those runners—via pickoffs or double plays—and the possibilities diminish. But not until you get three outs have the possibilities for that inning been reduced to zero. And the absence of the clock means that time, which plays the role of thief in every other game and also in life away from the game, cannot steal possibilities away. Only the other team can. The absence of a clock means that you always have the ability to keep increasing your possibilities. That's why players are taught to never give up an at bat and never just groove a pitch or take a defensive play off.

但棒球的美不只是在于它独特的宏观结构，它每时每刻的宏观结构也很美。与足球游戏(游戏邦注:在足球游戏中，每一时刻发生的大多数事情都与游戏的整体叙事无关)相比，棒球游戏的整体是一系列精心协调的个体时刻，它们的总和远不止是一个集合，每个时刻都对游戏的整体叙事有所贡献。一个人怎么能不去欣赏一场棒球比赛每时每刻的演变之美，这让我感到震惊。一个人怎么可能不欣赏在一个精细旋转的曲线球或滑球的控制水平?一个人怎么能不被一个快速球的力量所吓倒呢?在一个快速球的后期移动中，它被放置在投手所要求的位置。一个人怎么可能看不到一个精心计划和执行的投球序列的艺术性——进，出，上，下——一个为这个击球手量身定做的序列，当成功时可能会说击球手在看起来困惑和愚蠢?但击球手也会做出调整，在下一次击球时战胜对手。一个击球手的精明和运动能力怎能不给人留下深刻的印象，他在一个又一个艰难的投球中犯规，最终得到一个保送或三垒安打。人们怎能不看到中场外野手追踪并围捕一个重拳击球的优雅和运动能力，也怎能不欣赏在接球后转身将球以每小时100英里的速度从外野以每小时100英里的速度扔向一个敢于考验外野手手臂、滑入本垒的跑垒者所需要的技术和力量?谁能真正见证运动双杀的美丽，一个出色的跑垒者猫捉老鼠的活力，试图读懂投手来获得一个好的跳跃，并把所有这一切与油漆干燥，所有的事情相比? That’s beyond comprehension!

让我们回到进攻和防守之间的平衡，这是我在关闭之前抱怨足球。棒球在这方面做得很好，不仅与足球相比，而且与足球的对立面篮球相比。得分是相对容易的，在篮球中绝对是好的，而不得分则是非常糟糕的。足球的情况正好相反。不得分或多或少是意料之中的事，得分是非常非常非常好的。在足球比赛中，只要进一次球，防守就占据了主导地位，你仍然可以赢得比赛。(我在篮球场上也这么做过!)在篮球和足球比赛中，得分的好处和不得分的坏处之间的差异有助于解释两场比赛中失误影响的不同方式。篮球场上的失误真的很糟糕。他们剥夺了你的一方得分的机会，而把它给了另一方。 That's why getting a stop after a turnover in basketball is a really important thing. In soccer, by contrast, turnovers are mostly inconsequential. Most possessions don't end in scores anyway. I take this to be evidence that neither basketball nor soccer strikes a perfect balance between offense and defense. Because of the frequency of turn overs, prolific offense is really hard and relatively hard in soccer. On the other hand, because scoring is so easy in basketball, shutdown defense is really hard and something of a rarity in basketball.

In baseball, by contrast, scoring and run prevention are more or less equally important and are well-balance in their difficulty. The finely tuned balance between offense and defense means that the two make roughly equal contributions to the character of the game. Indeed, it's signficant that there is no such thing as a turnover in baseball. As a consequence, baseball involves a more intricate point-counterpoint bewteen offense and defense, since neither of the contributing melodies can be entirely silenced by the other. That is part of makes it a thing of such amazingly singular beauty.

Finally uniquely among the sports humans play, baseball gives us mortals brief intimations of immortality. Because there is no clock in baseball, a comeback is still possible until the very last out is made, no matter the state of the game. When and how that last out comes is left up to the players in the contest with each other, not to the clock, not to time the thief all all hopes and possibilities. That is true always of the Gods. It is true of us mortals only on the baseball field.

I don’t at all mean to denigrate soccer. I gladly concede that a good soccer match may contain many moments of beauty and grace. Soccer may even deserve its standing as the or at least a beautiful game. But if it does, then I insist that baseball should really be called the truly beautiful game! Indeed, it might even be called sublime.