A lot of people I know don’t like baseball anymore. I’ve heard “It’s too slow!” or “It’s not changing fast enough!” or “It’s departing from tradition too much!” (Strangely enough, the same person who issued the second complaint gave the third one.) My question in reply is, how can’t you love it? Just look at the stories this World Series and these playoffs gave us. We have Jim Leyland, Livan Hernandez, Jaret Wright, Tony Fernandez, Sandy Alomar, Bobby Bonilla and Mike Mussina all pulling off stunning deeds, often against the odds.

It’s impossible to dislike a sport that gives you a second chance, as it did for Bonilla and Leyland. Leyland was a minor-league catcher who never even hit .250 for a season, a manager who toiled in the minors for a decade and a major-league manager who has undergone so much heartbreak you’d think he would have had enough. But no, instead he rallies his team from a deficit in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 of the Series. Bonilla had a horrible World Series, both with the bat and on the field. But in Game 7, he was solid in the field and came up with the biggest home run of his career off a Wright offering in the 7th inning.

That’s another great story and a great career in the making. Wright was pitching in AA ball at the beginning of the season but rose to pitch Game 7. And despite the fact his team eventually lost, he pitched one of the best games I’ve seen in my short viewing days.

There were other pitchers who hurled phenomenal games in this year’s playoffs. Mike Mussina, supposedly overmatched by Randy Johnson, outpitched him twice and then pitched probably the two best no decisions ever in the League Championship Series.

The other great performance was, of course, Livan Hernandez in Game 6 against the Braves. Say what you want about that strike zone. It was consistent, and both teams had it. And he’s a great story too — a 22-year-old rookie who finally got to see his mother almost two years after he defected from Cuba.

And how about Sandy Alomar! He emerged from the shadows of his brother Roberto and fellow catcher Pudge Rodriguez. He hit safely in 30 straight games this season and hit a home run in the All-Star game (in his home park). He had a monster World Series, driving in 10 runs with four home runs.

Another Indian deserving of accolades is Tony Fernandez. He may go down in history as the goat of the World Series for letting a ball go through his legs, but he was the one who got the team there and the one who nearly won it for them. Please, no comparisons to Buckner.

So that is what I say to those who decry baseball and its heroes. Sure, the executives and owners are doing their best to destroy the sport, and, of course there are bad apples among the players.

But if you look at the big picture, most of the players are good guys who always give 150 percent on the field.

Interleague play or no interleague play; realignment, be it radical or not; expansion by one, two or three franchises; none of these make any difference to me while watching a batter and pitcher battle for supremacy.

The simplicity conceals the richness, the long story behind each of the 10 players competing on the field. It truly is a simply beautiful game.

And they wonder why they call it the Fall Classic.

Jayadev Athreya is a sophomore in mathematics from Ames.