There are people in Italy who can’t stand soccer. Not all Canadians love hockey. A similar situation exists in America, where there are those individuals you may be one of them who frown when somebody mentions baseball. Baseball to them means boring hours watching grown men in funny tight outfits standing around in a field staring away while very little of anything happens. They tell you it’s a game better suited to the 19th century, slow, quiet, and gentlemanly. These are the same people you may be one of them who love football because there’s the sport that values “the hit”.
By contrast, baseball seems abstract, cool, silent, still.
On TV the game is divided into a dozen perspectives, replays, close-ups. The geometry(几何学) of the game, however, is essential to understanding it. You will view the game from one point as a painter does his subject; you may, of course, project yourself into the game. It is in this projection that the game affords so much space and time for involvement. The TV won’t do it for you.
Take, for example, the third baseman. You sit behind the third base and you watch him watching home plate. His legs are apart, knees flexed(弯曲). His arms hang loose. He does a lot of this. The skeptic(怀疑论者) still cannot think of any other sports so still, so passive. But watch what happens every time the pitcher throws: the third baseman goes up on his toes, flexes his arms or brings the glove to a point in front of him, takes a step right or left, backward or forward, perhaps he glances across the field to check his first baseman’s position. Suppose the pitch is a ball. “Nothing happened,” you say. “I could have had my eyes closed.”
The skeptic and the innocent must play the game. And this involvement in the stands is no more intellectual than listening to music is. Watch the third baseman. Smooth the dirt in front of you with one foot; smooth the pocket in your glove; watch the eyes of the batter, the speed of the bat, the sound of ball on wood. If football is a symphony of movement and theatre, baseball is chamber music, a spacious interlocking(连锁) of notes, chorus（和声）and responses.
小题1:The passage is mainly concerned with .| A．the attraction of baseball | | B．the superiority of football | | C．the different tastes of people for sports | | D．the different characteristics of sports |
小题2:Those who don’t like baseball may complain that .| A．it is only to the taste of the old | | B．it is not exciting enough | | C．it involves fewer players than football | | D．it is pretentious and looks funny |
小题3:The author admits that .| A．baseball may seem boring when watched on TV | | B．football is more attracting than baseball | | C．baseball is more interesting than football | | D．baseball is too peaceful for the young |
小题4:By stating “I could have had my eyes closed”, the author means (4th paragraph last sentence) .| A．The consequence was so bad that he could not bear to see it | | B．The third baseman is so good at baseball that he could finish the game with eyes closed all the time and do his work well | | C．Even if the third baseman closed his eyes a moment ago, it could make no difference to the result | | D．The third baseman would rather sleep than play the game |
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