Baseball’s leisurely pace is one of its great joys. Unlike all the other major American team sports, there is no clock in baseball. The game ends when a task has been achieved, when the home team records the 27th out against the opposition. However long that takes. Pitch by pitch, out by out, inning by inning, this informs the entire tone of the endeavor, and rewards a particular type of watching. Paying half-attention, drifting in and out, appreciating the green of the grass, the clouds in the sky, the easy-drinkability of a watery, domestic beer, letting oneself be lulled into the rhythm of a sleepy summer afternoon.

Such slowness – hell, call it boringness, I don’t mind – runs counter to the frenetic rush of our 21st century existence. It exercises different brain muscles than the ones we use in our overworked, hyper-connected, deadline focused daily grind, and so offers the perfect escape.

Susan Sontag said: “Most of the interesting art in our time is boring”. I think she was getting at a similar notion. As modern life gets faster and faster and Faster (as James Gleick put it), things that draw us – force us, maybe – into a state of meditative reflection become more and more important. They are cherished pauses in the hustle-bustle all-the-time action. Think of Terrance Malick’s Tree of Life, or Paul Harding’s Tinkers, John Williams’s Stoner, Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, Christian Marclay’s The Clock. Baseball-toned works, all of them.