Knee-High by the Fourth of July

The Catch is on vacation in the beautiful Midwest this week. While driving along to our destination, we have passed field after field of deep green-colored sweet corn that all look amazing, especially to an eye that’s seen little but overgrown weeds and browning palm trees in Florida over the past few years. There’s a saying in these parts that if sweet corn is “knee-high by the Fourth of July” then you’ll absolutely have a bumper crop.

That got me to thinking about baseball – naturally – and how this phrase might actually be applicable to major league teams. Are there teams you can say are “knee-high“ at this juncture, ie., a team or teams that you just know will be great for the rest of the season and into the playoffs?

To that, I say absolutely! The “knee-high” teams for 2023: the Atlanta Braves and Tampa Bay Rays. They are by and large healthy, look great, and are ready to move on to bigger and better things. We should, if the analogy holds, see one or both progress to the league championship series.

The other teams are at various degrees of ripeness at this point in the season – some might be close (Rangers, D-backs, Dodgers), while some might need a little more time (Reds, Orioles, D-backs, Marlins). They’ll all come good at some point, just a matter of when.

Then there are the teams whose fields have flooded and should pack it in. There will be no crop this year. (A’s, Royals, Cards, Nats, and Rockies…maybe even the White Sox). It’s been a bad season and it’s not going to get better any time soon.

For everyone else, it’s just a matter of waiting to see how things progress. Good sun, sufficient water, quality seed…and you may have something that resembles a playoff squad.

No matter where your team might be at the moment, there’s a lot of baseball left to play. Let’s hope the second half of the season is a good one! Hope everyone had a very Happy Independence Day!