Infield Flies and Other Sporting Types

Abstract

IT HAS NOT BEEN MY EXPERIENCE THAT THERE'S a natural affinity between insects and sports. If anything, there would seem to be a fundamental incompatibility, given the ability of insects to bring even athletic events to a screeching, unscheduled halt. The Chicago White Sox, for example, blamed their 14-7 loss to the Cleveland Indians in Municipal Stadium in Cleveland on August 24, 1982, on infield of the entomological kind. Apparently, storms off Lake Erie blew huge numbers of mosquitoes into the stadium during the game, occasioning multiple delays to allow players to spray themselves with repellent. White Sox relief pitcher Jim Kern had particular difficulties and told a reporter, felt like I was doing a (bleep) Off commercia!...! couldn't concentrate. They were flying up my nose, in my ears, and I must have swallowed a dozen of them. I got my usual Cleveland greeting, 10,000 bleeping flies (Champaign-Urbana News Gazette, August 25, 1982). Presumably, these mosquitoes were tormenting players on both sides, and not just the visitors; implied in Kern's comments is the notion that Cleveland pitchers are as accustomed to swallowing as fielding them. How responsible the were for the loss is hard to say-the White Sox had lost seven of the eight games directly preceding their loss in Cleveland, and it seems unlikely that insects were at fault in all cases. The point is, though, that baseball players are, by virtue of experience, uniquely entitled to resent insects. After all, baseball games are generally played outdoors-where insects flourish-during the summer-when insects are at their peak. Although football is played outdoors, games generally occur late enough in the year that most self-respecting insects are passing the time in diapause. Basketball is played in indoor arenas during the winter, as is ice hockey-which presents an even greater challenge to insects by virtue of freezing temperature. Although winter stoneflies, snowfleas, and grylloblattids might be able to cope with the freezing temperatures, the odds are low that they'd be hanging around an ice arena during a game in numbers large