Baseball is a good sport.

I'm still not sold on watching it on television. It does have a knack for dragging, sometimes. But when you're actually playing the game...out in the diamond or outfield, there is a magic about the game. It's a beautiful thing to be out there, 9 people drawing into 1, facing down a batter together...It can be great.

Still, it's not to deny that there can be lulls, especially when you're watching a prima donna batter stepping in and out of the box, as if wasting another 5 TV seconds is going to earn him a perfect pitch.

But as the game goes, casual observers point to 1st Basemen, Short Stops, or Catchers as the grunt workers, the Pitcher as the Star, and the other fielders as the strong, silent support staff. But I think that the true crackle of baseball is actually to be found elsewhere. To me, the real action is to be found in the little conspicuous rings down by the dugouts, where you'll find the on-deck men...

I think that the entire game, the entire entity of baseball, can be simmered down into what's going on in the on-deck circle.

When you're at-bat, the focus is on you, and you control the "Now"; if you're at bat, your goal is to hit the dumb ball... But if you're on-deck, you control the future. If you're on-deck, you are already responsible for crafting something out of the thousand possible scenarios that could play out from the teammate ahead of you. The thoughts of all the endless outcomes fall on your shoulders...Everything that has happened so far, and everything that happens after circles back around to the Deckie. You have to be a contributor, even before you can physically give anything to the game.

And you're thinking: What if you're on deck and the third out comes in? Well, then the future is still in your hands... And unlucky you, you have to wait through a whole offensive half of an inning before you can do anything about it.

That's a lot of responsibility. But thanks to the willingness of the roster to funnel through the on-deck circle, the burden is shared, and the team is held up through the game: win or lose. But no matter what happens, and what the final outcome is, it was all of the promise, the thoughts about molding the game from infinite possibilities, that makes the game live for me.

I see Deckie moments as the steel girder holding up the entire game. Without that psychological commitment, the rest of the game is just exercise and basic physics. With Deckie moments, the game becomes more complex and involving. Next time you visit your hometown Class A team during beer koozie night, keep your eye down there, and see what it adds to the experience.

I've extended this theory of Deckies into other areas of my life. Whenever I have a coworker that is slugging through a task, not for personal glory, but because their hard work and dedication to a possible future is simply a beautiful thing; they're a Deckie. If a great newspaper article changes the way I perceive a developing news story, it's a Deckie. If another driver lets me merge coming out of a construction zone, they're my Deckie. If I've had a great lunch, and it keeps me going strong the rest of the day...sure it's a Deckie. Anytime I get some support from an item of interest that seems like it comes from a specific nexus of event and possibility, and it worked in my favor: It's a Deckie.

In the Assailable Cool World, Deckies will be given out freely, to media events (again, most likely songs) that keep me going. They deserve mention, but they aren't 1s, they aren't Flix, they aren't Tubies. Most Deckies will get 1 Cool Point for each mention.

This will also be my way to give props to old events/items that I rediscover and reclaim - but can no longer hold their cutting-edge place in the world, because they're too frickin' old!

Let me know your Deckies, too! What songs still make you smile after hearing them for 5 years? What reruns do you sit through (with commercials - !!!) just because you love them so much, or they remind you of a different time? What movies do you take to every friend's house, just because there's a small, slight, barely breathing chance that they'll bring it up in conversation and want to watch it?

So, that's your Deckie Defined.

Here's a special Cool Point: Going out to the OSL Lady Bugs, for most creative use of an On-Deck Circle.
Way to go, girls!