Our theme for the month of March is “I was wrong about.”

I’ve played basketball since the third grade. There was a season of my life when I wore nothing but basketball shorts and big t-shirts, because I wanted to be constantly ready to shoot hoops and prove some snobby boys wrong about girls being bad at basketball. This passion never wavered. In high school, I was convinced that basketball was the greatest sport in existence (I know, bold claim). And I had the arguments to back it up:

1. Basketball requires really high athleticism to play.
2. The games are extremely entertaining and don’t drag on for multiple hours on end. 
3. Some of the biggest stars in sports are basketball players. 
4. It requires little infrastructure and equipment to play.
5. And it perfectly combines brute strength and built skill in one sport. 

I sat on my high horse for quite a few years and often used these arguments to question the popularity of other sports. Specifically, I targeted baseball. 

With three-hour game times and a rather slow, even lazy, gameplay, I never understood why so many people sat in stadiums chowing down hot dogs while a bunch of burly men played catch with the addition of a bat. 

I blame my teenage pretentiousness for this uninformed negative view of this sport. Because now that I’m in my twenties, I can’t get enough of baseball. 

It all started last October, when the Dodgers took the National League by storm and secured their spot in the World Series with one of the most epic games in sports history. Specifically, Shohei Ohtani became the talk of the town, shocking the sports world with his ability to both pitch a baseball at 100 mph and hit home runs without breaking much of a sweat all in one single game.  It only took a couple of minutes of researching baseball statistics to realize just how incredible a performance this was. I was awed, and I was hooked. 

I’ve watched playoff seasons and championship series, but nothing else has held my attention like this World Series. Every game was a new experience. Every play took me by surprise. Every inning was a new story. And, in the end, the Dodgers came out on top with an epic seventh game, extra innings win to seal the deal. 

The more I looked into the world of baseball, the more I kept hearing that word: story. Commentators and fans use it almost as often as writers, describing the highs and lows of players, games, and seasons with the same concepts we attribute to books and movies. According to dedicated fans, each moment is a new plot point, ripe with opportunity for both greatness and failure. I was curious as to why the presence of story was so prevalent in baseball. I thought sports were just about showcasing great athleticism and winning. But I soon learned that sports and stories have the same core: humans and failure. 

Stories center around humans. Good stories follow broken humans who go on adventures to find redemption. The greatest stories show us how humans can fail over and over again and still choose to persevere till they find that one breakthrough moment that redeems them of their brokenness. Baseball games tell just that story. 

Baseball revolves around the idea of failure. Batters are struck out left and right. Being able to hit even one third of the baseballs thrown at you is a miraculous feat. If they’re struck out, they have to walk off that plate knowing that they just failed their team on the one thing that could get them points. And, yet, they walk off with their heads held high. Pitchers are tasked with outsmarting their opponents, putting their bodies on the line to throw a ball at incredible speeds in the hopes that the batter won’t read them before the ball leaves their hand. One good hit can mean the difference between a win and a loss. They can’t afford to give that up. But the game wouldn’t be baseball if the ball wasn’t hit by a bat. Pitchers are called off the mound by their managers almost every game, told that they failed to do the most effective thing that would keep the other team from gaining points. And, yet, they walk off to cheers, knowing that they did all they could in that moment. 

But these failures still win games. These failures win World Series. These failures inspire young athletes across the world to chase their dreams and embrace their failures. These failures tell a story, and I really love stories. 

Baseball is nothing like basketball, but it’s managed to turn this obdurate teenager into a woman who bleeds Dodger Blue and is proud to say that she was really wrong about baseball. 

P.S. I know a lot of baseball fans aren’t super keen on the Dodgers right now, but, as a native Angeleno, I can’t help but love the reigning champions hehe.

Priscilla Chang

Priscilla Chang (’25) majored in English literature and minored in linguistics at Calvin. She now works as a missionary teacher in Thailand, teaching language arts at Chiang Rai International Christian School. Apart from her love of reading and writing, she is also obsessed with learning languages, dancing, and watching the latest Korean dramas.