Why is a ball always thrown to the 1st baseman as he leaves the field after an inning?
Dear Cecil:
Over many years of watching major league baseball, my father and I have observed a peculiar practice. Apparently every team, at the end of their half-inning on the field, has someone in the dugout whose duty it is to throw a ball to the first baseman as he runs off the field. What is the purpose and/or origin of this practice? Why not throw a ball to the shortstop, the right fielder, why throw a ball at all? No one I have ever talked to about this has even ventured a guess as to what is going on. I certainly hope you can enlighten me.
Cecil replies:
I had always assumed that the custom you describe was some old superstition, like not washing your socks during a winning streak. However, various baseball sachems with whom I have conferred assure me that such is not the case. A baseball superstition is some meaningless ritual that you perform for good luck's sake--for example, stepping on third base on the way on or off the field, or not stepping on the foul line. A baseball tradition, on the other hand, is some equally meaningless ritual that you perform just because baseball players have always done it that way.
Tossing a ball to the first baseman is in the latter category. As you know, one of the first baseman's principal responsibilities is throwing a ball around the horn to warm up the infielders when the team takes the field each inning. Naturally that means the first baseman has to scare up a ball somewhere to start with. In the early days of the game, many first basemen were evidently so dense they could barely find the bathroom much less a baseball. Hence the practice of handing them a ball as they entered the dugout, lest they delay the game looking for one later. Today, of course, most first basemen have advanced educational training that renders such precautions unnecessary--but the tradition lives on. Such reverence for the past is what has made baseball great.
