What I Tell People Who Look Down On Watching Sports

Sometimes I find myself talking to people who don't understand why “anybody” would like sports. I usually count to ten very slowly, breathing in and out using a method I learned from Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Buddhist Zen master and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh. 

“Breathing in… I know this person is an idiot” “Breathing out… I double down on that thought.”

Despite this, I then explain about the concept that sports is non-contrived drama. That unlike all other forms of storytelling, there is no person who is writing the script, it is happening in real time.

Does the superstar batter hit a home run or strike out?  Is this Casey at the Bat? Or is it The Natural? We don’t know. They don’t know. It has to play out.

It doesn’t even have to be about a likely hero or goat. Who saw Brian Doyle’s 1978 World Series performance when this .161 hitter went 7-for-16 .438 with just the second and third RBIs of his CARRER, coming?

No one.

Sports, baseball in particular, is about stories, a narrative that builds, at-bat by at-bat, pitch by pitch, and the more you know, the better it is.

Then I tell them the story of Jasson Dominguez’s first at bat in the pros.

I start with him coming from the Dominican Republic and getting a five million dollar bonus as a sixteen year old. One of the largest bonuses in the history of the game. Of his possessing such other worldly skills that he acquired the nickname of “The Martian”.

I talk about the pressure. The hopes of his countrymen. His total commitment to the game. 

I talk about his first year of living in America.

Not speaking English. Gaining weight because all he knew how to do was order hamburgers at the drive through. Of having money. Real money. For the first time in his life.

Of all the other “bonus babies” who have flamed out.

Of the scrutiny, Of having every at bat, every play in the outfield dissected and worried over. Of still being only 20 years old when he was elevated, after just nine games at AAA, to have his first at bat as a New York Yankee.  

Parents and family in the stands. Yankee fans hoping that the hype was real for a change.

He was facing Justin Verlander. Justin Verlander who will be a first ballot Hall of Famer. Justin Verlander, who at the age of forty was still good enough to be the reigning Cy Young Award winner. Justin Verlander, breaker of Yankee hearts.

The wily veteran vs. the kid. No author. No guarantee either way. Real life.  

As best I can recall, the at bat went like this…

Verlander started him off with a curve ball the likes of which this kid had never experienced. The pitch had its desired effect. You could see it in his face. Dominguez was frozen. Overmatched.  

Then his expression changed. Hardened. He nodded his head. Like he knew something. He knew that the next pitch would be a fastball. And he reset.

The next pitch WAS a fastball… and he crushed it. Two run home run. First swing as a pro. The youngest Yankee to hit a first at-bat home run.

September 2^nd, 2023.

He hits four home runs in his next seven games. 

Happy ending. 

No.

Less than a week later he tears his ulnar collateral ligament. Out for the season. 

Comes back in the middle of the following year. Gets hurt again.

Does he have another comeback in him and, if he does, will it be at the level of his promise?

At least that’s how I tell it.

Stories. 

Last night, April 16^th 2025, he laced a double to drive in three runs and ice a Yankee victory in what will hopefully be his first full year as a Yankee. 

He is still only twenty-two.

Stories.