A bit long, but a good read:
Baseball fans have a different relationship with baseball players than
do fans and players of other sports. For instance, can you imagine Jamie Moyer playing the most important position in football or basketball at the age of 46? Can you imagine Dustin Pedroia winning the NBA or NFL MVP? At the same time, I can't imagine myself on
a offensive line, staring down a 300-pound defensive end who's three
times faster than I am. I can't imagine myself dribbling, running and
dunking over a 6'8" forward (or guard!).
But I can imagine myself scooping up a groundball in the hole and
throwing out the runner at first. I can imagine myself running down a
ball in the gap or swinging at a major league fastball and actually
hitting the ball, maybe for a hit. It's an illusion, of course, but the
skills of a Major League baseball player are somehow accessible to us.
This makes the baseball player a different kind of sports hero, one
less removed and more personal.
This is one of baseball's strengths and, I guess, one of its
weaknesses. The strength is that the bond between baseball and its fans
may be more personal than that of other sports and its fans. The
weakness is that we take the personal aspects of baseball players more
seriously, and we react more emotionally to the way they conduct
themselves on and off the field.