Section B

Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice.

There are people in Italy who can't endure soccer. Not all Canadians love hockey. A similar situationexists in America, where there are those individuals you may be one of them who yawn or even frown when somebody mentions baseball. Baseball to them metals boring hours watching grown men in funny tight outfits standing around in a field staring away while very little of anything happens. They tell you it's a better suited to the 19th-century slow, quiet, gentlemanly taste. These are the same people you may be. one of them who love football because there's the sport that glorifies "the hit".

By contrast, baseball seems abstract, cool, silent, still.

On TV the is broken into a dozen perspectives, replays, close-ups. The geometry(几何学) of the , however, is essential to understanding it. You will contemplate the from one point as a painter does his subject; you may, of course, project yourself into the . It is in this projection that the affords so much space and time for involvement. The TV won't do it for you.

Take the third baseman for instance. You sit behind the third base dugout and you notice him watchinghome plate. His legs are apart, knees bent. His arms hang loose. He does a lot of this. The skeptic still cannot think of any other sports so still, so passive. But watch what happens every time the pitcher (投手) throws; the third baseman goes up on his toes, flexes his arms or bring the glove to a point in front of him, takes a step right or left, backward or forward, perhaps he glances across the field to check his first baseman's position. Suppose the pitch is a ball. "Nothing happened," you say. "I could have had my eyes closed."

The skeptic and the innocent must play the . And this involvement in the stands is no more intellectualthan listening to music. Watch the third baseman. Smooth the dirt in front of you with one foot; smooth the pocket in your glove; watch tile eyes of the hatter, the speed of the bat, the sound of horsehideon wood. ff football is a symphony(交响乐) of movement and theatre, baseball is chamber music, a spacious interlocking of notes, chores and responses.

What would those who dislike baseball complain?