A friend, a student of baseball, tried to explain to me the difference between the American League and the National League. This, as I told him, is beyond my threshold of caring. However I think I now understand the difference.
The American League players scratch their behinds, and the National League players scratch…the other side. This is a time-honored tradition, and baseball is all about time-honoring. And spitting, of course. My friend also said something about a silly rule called “designated hitter,” which he considered central to the differences between the leagues, but I lost interest.
I’m sure there are many other distinctions between the leagues, such as preferred chewing tobacco and nuanced bat-tapping-on-cleats rituals. But at my advanced stage of life, when it comes to baseball, scratching and itching is as much interest as I can muster.
