Free Play Subjectivity

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The Free Play softball aesthetic, or ethos, or model, makes room for negotiation about what really just happened. Such a negotiation often–but not always–arises after whatever did happened is perceived as having happened differently.

Other times potential differences in perception never come to be negotiated. Last season, passing an opposing fielder on my way out to the outfield, he confirmed that the half inning just completed had actually incurred but two outs, rather than the usual three. And so it goes. Francis, in the video refers to the previous inning during which the catcher called a ball fair that some felt differently about. But, in our necessarily minimal system, it’s the catcher’s call to make.

This includes a game several seasons back in which I discovered the numerous disputed calls were due to the catcher believing a fair ball was determined by how long it spent traversing fair territory in the air. Still, so it went and it is at least my article of faith that it all evens out in the free play cosmos.

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