Reasons to love spectator sports

Re “Take me out of the ballgame,”

Opinion, Oct. 19

The ability to find value, entertainment and emotional release in athletic competition is a basic human trait. That’s why the Greeks invented the Olympic Games in 786 BC. We baseball fans are just being human, David Barash. Try it, you might like it.

BOB GALE

Pacific Palisades

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Had Barash’s piece bemoaning spectator sports been published two weeks ago, I would have dismissed it as merely the simplistic patronizing of a sourpuss. I like baseball, he doesn’t. Who cares?

But after Albert Pujols’ majestic homerun with two outs in the ninth inning of Monday night’s playoff game, one that enabled my beloved St. Louis Cardinals to stave off elimination (at least for another game), I must retort.

This astounding triumph -- indeed, the real-life antithesis of Mighty Casey’s fabled strikeout -- united me (via phone and text message) moments later with family and friends around the nation, instilled within me a surge of optimism and immediately called into question everything I have up to this point deemed “impossible.”

Quite honestly, the euphoria that solitary moment brought about may never be fully chiseled away. And that, I’m certain, is why sports matter.

JAMES W. HINDERER

Los Angeles

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Being a Chicago Cubs fan for 37 years actually prepared me for 25 years of marriage -- the high hopes, the dashed dreams, one team trying to score while the other tries to prevent it, the exhilaration of a game well played and the realization that after all these years, it’s all been worth it.

Loving sports isn’t instead of reading a good book or taking a walk -- it’s in addition to those things! David, lighten up. Go see a ball game and have a cold one.

PATTI STEFFEN

Malibu