I have spent a lot of time over the years contemplating the role of sports in our lives. Why is it so important to us? Why is it so popular, everywhere across the planet? Its global reach, even with local flavors, must say something about human nature itself.

I have my theories, which center around allowing us to satisfy the tribalist and competitive aspects of our nature in a manner which were, in previous generations that didn’t have sports, satisfied in violent and destructive ways. Sports becoming so popular is a very important innovation towards the welfare of human beings. It shouldn’t be dismissed as just mere entertainment, an unimportant, frivolous activity.

But there is a value to sports that I hadn’t even thought to consider until now. Being without any sports to follow for several months at the beginning of this pandemic, every single day seemed to just blend into the next. When you get up and there’s nowhere to go and you just do whatever whenever because you’re alone and there’s no one you need to particularly coordinate with, the clock and the calendar begin to disconnect from your life. There were times in May and June that I thought it was Tuesday, and it was actually Friday.

The rhythms of a shared sporting culture provide structure to our lives. What time is the A’s game on today? Is it a day game? Night game? Who are they playing? Is it the first game of a series, or the last?

Other things can provide that kind of structure, too, of course. Commuting to work five days a week. Going to church every Sunday. Participating in these rhythms, particularly with other people, creates a feeling of stability and belonging. The pandemic has removed many of these kinds of rhythmic structures in our lives. We’ve been forced to creatively find alternatives, or suffer the psychological penalties of going without.

Baseball is back. For how long, we’ll have to see. At what risk, at what cost, I don’t know. But it’s not just a frivolous vanity. It’s not without value. Whether that value is worth the cost, is a valid question. But planning my day around the time of first pitch, watching the game, talking about it with other people on Twitter, and then ritually writing about it here on this blog afterwards–all of that fills a part of my soul that has felt empty for months now.

But it would help to overcome that feeling of one day just bleeding into the next if the baseball game I watch didn’t just repeat itself in consecutive games. The A’s 3-2 victory over the Mariners today played itself out very much in the same manner as their 3-2 victory over the Mariners yesterday.

Both games: the A’s fell behind early. Both games: the A’s bats were listless against the Mariners starting pitchers. Both games: the A’s pitching was good enough to keep the team within reach in the game until the offense could do something. Both games: Mariners manager Scott Servais let a left-handed reliever pitch to a right-handed A’s batter when he didn’t really need to, and that A’s batter hit a home run that gave the A’s just enough runs, despite their meager offense, to hold on to a win.

Like a matinee performance of a Shakespeare play, the script was the same, but some of the cast was different. The understudy stepping into the starting pitcher role this time was Chris Bassitt instead of Mike Fiers. The right-handed batter hitting the homer was played by Ramon Laureano instead of Chad Pinder. And this time, they ended the play in nine innings instead of ten.

Like watching multiple versions of the Scottish play, I’m willing to watch a decent script multiple times with different players. I won’t turn down more 3-2 victories if that’s the script that works for the A’s this year. But there are other great scripts we could try, too. How about a fun comedy with an effective offense and a nice, easy victory for once?