- For Schwartz this formed the paradox at the heart of baseball, or football, or any other sport. You loved it because you considered it an art: an apparently pointless affair, undertaken by people with a special aptitude, which sidestepped attempts to paraphrase its value yet somehow seemed to communicate something true or even crucial about The Human Condition. The Human Condition being, basically, that we’re alive and have access to beauty, can even erratically create it, but will someday be dead and will not.
Baseball was an art, but to excel at it you had to become a machine...
This is true of every sport, and a lot of other things. If you want to enjoy a sport and leave it that then play it, bu don't think too much about it. But if you want to truly become great at any sport, it comes to repetition. Can you do the same thing however many times out of ten which qualifies as a success? That involves working on the fundamentals, working on form, working on accuracy and conditioning. You have to be willing to go out and work, not necessarily perform but slog through the same exercises over and over and over until it becomes second-nature. I've been a machine before, it takes a lot to continue to enjoy something when you're in that state.Baseball was an art, but to excel at it you had to become a machine...