The walk in baseball is actually kind of weird. In-game success is generally generated from a physical accomplishment — hitting a ball, throwing a ball, catching a ball — but the base on balls is a reward for not doing anything to the ball (or, really, at all).
OK, OK, obviously, these batters are, in fact, doing something. Earning a walk takes discipline and awareness and patience and, as any amateur optometrist screaming at a youth game would tell you, a good eye.
Well, the Cardinals’ Lars Nootbaar has mastered the art of walking — or, perhaps, the art of “not hitting.