America's Game

My entire life I have been passionate about sports. This passion runs wild, pumping through my veins to the point where athletic competition becomes an extreme obsession. I long for Sundays in the fall when the gladiators of our generation take to the gridiron. I crave the sound of skates scraping on that sparkling icy surface every winter, but more than anything, I love the game of baseball. Ty Cobb once said, “Baseball is a red-blooded sport for red-blooded men. It’s no pink tea, and mollycoddles had better stay out. It’s a struggle for supremacy, a survival of the fittest.”Baseball is America’s game, it is our pastime, and our most treasured outdoor activity.

The history and tradition associated with baseball dates back before the Civil War and arrived from alterations in Cricket and Stick-ball. Since the 1800s, little revisions to the rules have been made, creating “nostalgia among the American people, more so than any other sport… Baseball is also a very democratic game. Unlike football and basketball, baseball can be played well by people of average height and weight.” Players barely hovering above 5 feet, such as current Los Angeles Dodger Rafael Furcal have had outstanding careers in professional baseball.

According to baseball-almanac, the first professional baseball game was played in 1871, many years before the professional organizations of other major sports. Several years later in 1876, the first National League teams took the field. Since then, players from 50 different countries have played in the Major Leagues, making the game more diverse than most may think. Even in the poverty stricken countries of Latin America, baseball is played with sticks as bats and a can as a ball. Baseball academies sponsored by numerous professional teams allow these young men to showcase their skills and someday become professionals. The game’s popularity did not really come of age until the glory days of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. It was these men who helped to make the game, and it was Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa who helped to save the game. Baseball was struggling for survival in the early 90’s, but the homerun race in 1998 increased attendance in Major League parks. Since 1998, attendance has dropped below 70 million fans only twice, and this past season over 79 million fans trudged through the turnstiles, reports MLB.com. Baseball is again gaining popularity among the youth, as 2.7 million boys and girls headed to the sandlots as part of Little League Baseball in the 2006 season.

Hopefully, this popularity will not decline with players like Barry Bonds and Jose Canseco destroying decades of baseball history, and just maybe, the game will again be played the way it was meant to be played, “ninety percent mental, with the other half physical.”

Baseball is played in the greatest seasons of the year, under beautiful blue skies and fireworks on the fourth. The crack of the bat and pop in the glove are common sounds to ears of all ages; they are common to each and every American. The USA Today ranked hitting a baseball the hardest thing to do in all sports. But Tom Hanks said it best in A League of Their Own when he said, “It's supposed to be hard! If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great!” This hard keeps me coming back day after day and year after year. 162 games are played every year by every Major League team, and I can honestly say that I enjoy every single one of them.