AP Photo/Paul Sancya
There is nothing to distort the fabric of a baseball game like the possibility of a landmark hit.
Much in the same way a supermassive object warps the space around it—playing around with standards of direction and motion and time—the quest for a milestone screws with the experience of the game. As a player draws closer to, say, Hit No. 3,000, the effect grows more pronounced. Each plate appearance feels either too slow or too fast. The inning falls out of favor as the primary unit of time: “This is his second chance tonight” communicates far more about what matters here than “It’s the fifth inning.