What is there about American society that makes baseball America's "national pastime"?
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Baseball is and will be America’s pastime because it is the quintessential American games. Rather than reinvent the wheel I’ll point you to “God's Country and Mine” by historian Jacques Barzun.
In that Barzun explains that the structure of the game exemplifies America. We are of different generations, races and ideas but we are all on the same team - though some days it’s hard to see that - and no matter where we are we must all play together to gain the desired goals of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
He opines that no other game does this the way baseball - and he specifies high school and non-professional levels - does it and for that reason it is intrinsically woven into the fabric of the country.
The rules of the game reflect life and the way American’s believe it should be; fair and unbiased but requiring a teak of hard working people to realize.
“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game. . .That baseball fitly expresses the powers of the nation's mind and body is a merit separate from the glory of being the most active, agile, varied, articulate, and brainy of all group games. . .
The idea of baseball is a team. . . (that) takes its mystic nine and scatters them wide. A kind of individualism thereby returns, but it is limited - eternal vigilance is the price of victory. Just because they're far apart, the outfield can't dream or play she-loves-me-not with daisies. The infield is like a steel net held in the hands of the catcher. . .The pitcher. . . is the wayward man of genius, whom others will direct. . .He is surrounded no doubt by mere talent, unless one excepts that transplanted acrobat, the shortstop . What a brilliant invention is his role despite its exposure to ludicrous lapses! One man to each base, and then the free lance, the trouble shooter, the movable feast for the eyes, whose motion animates the whole foreground.
The rules keep pace with this imaginative creation so rich in allusions to real life. . . .A victory has to be won, not snatched.. . “
Baseball is a cross generational game, it’s history is interwoven with ours politically, culturally and even economically. In ‘Field of Dreams” Terrance Mann’s short speech encouraging Ray to complete the field says it quite well.
“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.”
Movie rhetoric perhaps but true nonetheless. Nothing has its root so deeply entwined with America and baseball. They share a history going back to the colonies; Abner Doubleday did not invent the game in Cooperstown.
Baseball is the national pastime because baseball is America.
hope it helps to you
In that Barzun explains that the structure of the game exemplifies America. We are of different generations, races and ideas but we are all on the same team - though some days it’s hard to see that - and no matter where we are we must all play together to gain the desired goals of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
He opines that no other game does this the way baseball - and he specifies high school and non-professional levels - does it and for that reason it is intrinsically woven into the fabric of the country.
The rules of the game reflect life and the way American’s believe it should be; fair and unbiased but requiring a teak of hard working people to realize.
“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game. . .That baseball fitly expresses the powers of the nation's mind and body is a merit separate from the glory of being the most active, agile, varied, articulate, and brainy of all group games. . .
The idea of baseball is a team. . . (that) takes its mystic nine and scatters them wide. A kind of individualism thereby returns, but it is limited - eternal vigilance is the price of victory. Just because they're far apart, the outfield can't dream or play she-loves-me-not with daisies. The infield is like a steel net held in the hands of the catcher. . .The pitcher. . . is the wayward man of genius, whom others will direct. . .He is surrounded no doubt by mere talent, unless one excepts that transplanted acrobat, the shortstop . What a brilliant invention is his role despite its exposure to ludicrous lapses! One man to each base, and then the free lance, the trouble shooter, the movable feast for the eyes, whose motion animates the whole foreground.
The rules keep pace with this imaginative creation so rich in allusions to real life. . . .A victory has to be won, not snatched.. . “
Baseball is a cross generational game, it’s history is interwoven with ours politically, culturally and even economically. In ‘Field of Dreams” Terrance Mann’s short speech encouraging Ray to complete the field says it quite well.
“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.”
Movie rhetoric perhaps but true nonetheless. Nothing has its root so deeply entwined with America and baseball. They share a history going back to the colonies; Abner Doubleday did not invent the game in Cooperstown.
Baseball is the national pastime because baseball is America.
hope it helps to you
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