Recently, on one of the blogs I read regularly, there ensued a debate as to whether the commenters on that one, or on another much-frequented blog knew the game better.

Tonight, a question was posed that’s one of those so-simple-it’s-profound: “What exactly is knowing baseball?”

Immediately, a few different ideas come to mind.

There’s knowing baseball in the sense of knowing the rules, written and unwritten.

There’s knowing baseball in the sense of “I’ll take 1970s St. Louis Cardinals for $400, Alex”.

There’s knowing baseball in terms of knowing about OBP, OPS, FIP, BABIP, K/BB, WAR, LI, and so on.

There’s knowing baseball in the sense of owning season tickets, of going to as many minor league games as major league ones, and recognizing names that may or may not jump out at you.

There’s knowing baseball in the sense of knowing its place in culture and lore.

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We sit here and read blogs and writers and come to conclusions about whether or not someone knows baseball, whether or not he or she possesses the analytical mind necessary to dissect it’s “finer points”, as my grandmother likes to call ‘em.

We spend hours constructing optimal fantasy rosters–indeed, fantasy sports is now so huge (and not just baseball) that there’s a company that underwrites insurance policies for fantasy team owners.

We buy Baseball Prospectus and The Baseball Codes, Ball Four and Baseball Between the Numbers all in our effort to expand our knowledge, from the statistics to the rules of etiquette on the baseball diamond, from behind-the-scenes of a world only a select few ever get to experience, to evaluations of each and every player expected to don a Major League uniform in the coming season.

We watch The Natural and Field of Dreams, Bull Durham and the Sandlot in an effort to live and breathe that which matters so much to us, even if it has to be vicariously.

We draw conclusions, make assumptions, and then stare in wonder as these are blown up or taken down right before our very eyes.

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Is baseball truly knowable? Is it something that can be truly understood via facts and figures only, or is it something that must be intuited, something that can be grasped only by sensing it?

That, of course, is part and parcel of the scout-vs-saber debate, and it seems that we’ve reached a point where we can say, you really need a bit of both, when it comes to prospects.

Yet, you can hardly argue that evaluating prospects is the same as knowing baseball, because baseball it involves so much more.

It involves an entire mythology of its own, an entire culture and an ethos not entirely different than what you’d expect if you suddenly found religion. The similarities here may be endless. If you’re born into baseball, such as you may be born into religion, and it’s nurtured right, you may never know anything else. If it’s forced on you the wrong way, you may rebel and say you want nothing more to do with it, or you may come from the outside, with no connection other than a feeling that yes, this is right, this is where I belong.

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So what makes an intelligent baseball fan/writer/person? Someone with whom you can converse, and with whom you enjoy conversing, reading or playing or otherwise utilizing the sport?

Maybe it’s this–and this is just one example of many, many others, but it’s what comes to mind:

If you saw the 27th at-bat against Armando Galarraga on one June night not too long ago, if you shared in any part the pervading emotions–happiness, shock, outrage, sadness and then, for many, forgiveness, if you smiled with Galarraga or cried with Jim Joyce, if you advocated expansion of replay or argued for the system to remain as it is…

…if you did any of that, if you sensed and you felt like you understood what had just happened, and not just what happened but that it was important, even if you didn’t necessarily know why…

Then you understand the pull that this game can have, and if you understand the pull of the game, then you know baseball.