I enjoy watching the chase for party nominations for president of the United States. I have found this fascinating since I was a child; I remember watching the 1964 Republican Convention that nominated Barry Goldwater instead of Nelson Rockefeller.

I also am a baseball fan, and was well ahead of Goldwater.

It strikes me that the two competitions — ball and presidential primaries — have more than a few things in common.

Let’s enumerate 10 ways in which the chase for the Democratic/Republican nomination resembles the big-league baseball season.

1. The process lasts a very long time. Including spring training and the World Series, the baseball season goes on for eight months. The nomination chase began last year (if not in 2014) and it looks as if it will go on into June and involve at least five people — three on the Republican side, two on the Democratic.

2. “Experts” know nothing despite the new and more nuanced statistics they create — statistics which explain to us why something has already happened. The stats are not quite as sharp when it comes to what happens in the future. The Kansas City Royals were thought incapable of winning a World Series last year, and Bernie Sanders was not only was going to lose the Michigan primary tonight, he likely was going to be trounced.

3. Fans have news to process nearly every day for months and months. If you didn’t like yesterday’s game/election, another is coming soon.

4. The first batch of results don’t mean much, aside from identifying some no-hopers. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint” may have been invented to describe baseball, but it works for the primary season, too.

5. Baseball and presidential primaries appeal to numbers nerds. Mostly, it’s about counting and adding. I’m certain political reporters could cover baseball and that baseball writers could cover an election.

6. Baseball has 30 teams to follow. The nominations have 50 states. Tons of information out there to absorb, if you dare.

7. Ahead of a season, every campaign believes it can win, if things break right.

8. All things being equal, it’s better to have lots of money to spend, but it is no guarantee of success.

9. If things go bad, the “manager” (field/campaign) will be fired.

10. Nobody knows anything. Did I mention this already?

One of the leading statball sites predicted a 72-90 record in 2015 for the Kansas City Royals, who not only easily eclipsed that number but won the World Series.

Most Michigan polls had Sanders 20 points behind Hillary Clinton; Sanders not only beat that tonight, he won the contest.

Fans of baseball, as well as the presidential nominating process, love that kind of unpredictability.

Granted, the aggregators of polls can, these days, come very lose to predicting how all 50 states will vote — in the general election.

But the primary season can serve up unexpected results — just like Major League Baseball.