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 yawn or even frown when somebody mentions baseball. 『Baseball to them means boring hours watching grown men in funny tight outfits¹ standing² around in a field staring away while very little of anything happens.』① They tell you it’s a game better suited to the 19th century, slow, quiet, gentlemanly. These are the same people you may be one of them who love football because there’s the sport that glorifies³ “the hit”.
 
By contrast, baseball seems abstract, cool, silent, still.
 
On TV the game is fractured into a dozen perspectives, replays, close?ups. The geometry of the game, however, is essential to understanding it. You will contemplate⁴ the game from one point as a painter does his subject; you may, of course, project yourself into the game. It is in this projection⁵ 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 dugout and you watch him watching home plate. His legs are apart, knees flexed⁶. His arms hang loose. He does a lot of this. The skeptic⁷ still cannot think of any other sports so still, so passive. 『But watch what happens every time the pitcher⁸ throws: the third baseman goes up on his toes, flexes⁹ his arms or bring 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.』② 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 batter¹⁰, the speed of the bat, the sound of horsehide on wood. If football is a symphony of movement and theatre, baseball is chamber¹¹ music, a spacious¹² interlocking of notes, chores and responses.
 
1. The passage is mainly concerned with .
 
A. the different tastes of people for sports
 
B. the different characteristics of sports
 
C. the attraction of football
 
D. the attraction of baseball
 
2. Those who don’t like baseball may complain that .
 
A. it is only to the taste of the old
 
B. it involves fewer players than football
 
C. it is not exciting enough
 
D. it is pretentious¹³ and looks funny
 
3. The author admits that .
 
A. baseball is too peaceful for the young
 
B. baseball may seem boring when watched on TV
 
C. football is more attracting than baseball
 
D. baseball is more interesting than football
 
4. By stating “I could have had my eyes closed. ” the author means (4th paragraph last sentence):
 
A. The third baseman would rather sleep than play the game.
 
B. Even if the third baseman closed his eyes a moment ago, it could make no different to the result.
 
C. 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.
 
D. The consequent was too bad he could not bear to see it.
 
5. We can safely conclude that the author .
 
A. likes footballB. hates football
 
C. hates baseballD. likes baseball
 
Vocabulary
 
1. dugout n.　棒球场边供球员休息的地方
 
2. pitcher n.　投手
 
3. symphony n.　交响乐
 
4. chamber n.　室内
 
5. contemplate vt.沉思，注视

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