I'd like to apologize for not posting much in the past few weeks. I'm busy, okay? Get off my back. Anyway, this is a paper that I had to write for my Sports in American Life class (It's really a class, and it meets a requirement, I swear! Who says that Notre Dame is a real academic institution. Just kidding. All my other classes suck). Anyway, here we go (citations included, contact for works cited):
A man stands in the setting afternoon sun, his shirt is grimy and his back sweaty from his long day toiling in the scorching summer heat. He is bruised and battered, but not unhappy. He is simply doing his job, just like millions of Americans have done before him. He selects a tool from the shelf and walks forward, swinging it to loosen his stiff muscles. But this man is not like other manual laborers, and his employer is not considered average, either. He is a baseball player. A member of what would be the 331st ranking company on Fortune’s list (Fortune 500); Major League Baseball, an industry that grossed almost seven billion dollars during the 2010 season (Sports Statistics). With an income comparable to that of Visa and AutoZone, the Major Leagues have a very strong economic power. In fact, it makes more money per year than approximately eighty-five countries (CIA). But baseball is one of the few businesses that can claim both economic and emotional ties to the American people.
Having existed for over one hundred years, since the merger of the American and National Leagues in 1901, it is also one of the few that has stood strong through the twentieth century. Baseball players, unlike most normal businessmen, are our idols. Coming from every background, every race, every size, and every other category imaginable, we are able to see a little bit of ourselves in these men. The short kid who gets bullied can rally on the spirit of Cody Ross, the 2010 National League Championship Series Most Valuable Player, who hit five home runs in fifteen playoff games, despite his 5’10” frame, to lead his San Francisco Giants to a World Series title (Cody Ross). The slugging all-star has to stay humble after watching Mark McGwire, the one time Home Run King, and his historic fall from grace after the steroid scandal during the 1998 season. Kids from the ghetto have Dontrelle Willis, who grew up the son of a single mother in a rough neighborhood of Alameda, California. The blue-collar workers have Cal Ripken, who didn’t take a day off of work for over seventeen years. Baseball teaches us patience, strategy, roles, sacrifice, responsibility, pressure, endurance, and love, qualities that can only be learned by experience, and will never be taught in schools. Jacques Barzun, an American historian, once stated that, “Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball” (Tygiel ix). This may not be totally true, as there are many people getting along just fine in the United States without knowing the difference between a foul ball and a knuckleball, but an understanding of baseball provides a lens that makes American life look much more vivid. Through its economic role and social influence, baseball has played a large part in shaping American culture as we know it today.
America has been the incubator for many sports in the last century. Football and basketball both grew up primarily on American soil, and fans have readily embraced hockey and soccer from other parts of the world. Any of these could have grown into “America’s pastime,” but baseball was the one that did. There’s nothing overly remarkable about the game of baseball. There isn’t really a “wow” factor that makes fans stream in simply for the fantastical aspect. It’s slightly slow-paced, with fifteen to twenty seconds between every pitch, most of which only last for the one second that it takes for the ball to reach the catcher’s mitt. Even when a ball is hit into play, about 70% of the time it is an out, most of which are routine plays. What draws in the fans that flood the stadiums every summer night? What gives the game of baseball the mystical aspect that makes it so desirable?
This mystique comes from the fact that baseball is like no other game. The other four aforementioned sports that have gained popularity in America, football, basketball, hockey, and soccer, are all categorized by David Hart as part of the “oblong game,” which he describes as “a contest played out on a rectangle between two sides, each attempting to penetrate the other’s territory to deposit some small object in the other’s goal or end zone” (Hart 5). These sports are a battle over territory, where one team is clearly on the offensive and the other is clearly on the defensive, where there is always a clear-cut target; putting the ball in the goal or crossing it over the end-line. In baseball, a player must cross home plate in order to score, but that is never his primary goal when he enters the field as a batter. He must first find a way to reach base, and then, with help of his own teammates and through his own accord, he must round the bases in order to score a run.
Only in the case of a home run is a player directly responsible for scoring a run. In all other cases, a player’s run is half the responsibility of the man who drove him in. The defense can do nothing to physically hold him back, making size and strength, which are at a premium in the oblong game, of minimal value. As Hart states, “The oblong game is war, but baseball is Attic tragedy” (10). Life hardly ever gives us a clearly defined goal, and even more rare is the times that it gives us territory to defend. The game of life is not a war, with clear-cut winners and losers, half getting everything that they want and the other half losing everything they have.
In life, you have to put yourself in a good position to be successful and then rely on the people supporting you, a little bit of skill, and a little bit of luck. Only rarely can anyone take over and hit the home run that propels them to success without the help of others. Instead of a battle, it is a story, with ups and downs, runs and slides. Even the best teams get beaten sometimes, but one loss doesn’t mean much in the big picture of the seemingly endless season. What matters in baseball, like in life, is consistency and the ability to bounce back from tough situations. The United States was built on these strengths, refusing to ever be beaten for long, and persisting through all adversity that came in the form of war, economic hardship, and social tension. A baseball season isn’t decided in one moment, and neither is a life. It is a collection of moments, coupled together into what seems to be eternal.
Like life, baseball is timeless. There is no clock running down the minutes and seconds that are so precious in over games. Theoretically, even an inning could last forever, something that can not be said about a quarter or a half in a game such as basketball or football. On a deeper level, one can see that baseball, as long as anyone can remember, has been a constant presence in our lives from March through October, every day of every month of every summer. As far as any of us mortals are concerned, “baseball is continuous, like nothing else among American things, an endless game of repeated summers, joining the long generations of all the fathers and all the sons (Hall 46).” This ongoing company gives us confidence that everything will fall into place with time. Even the field can be infinite, as there are no set dimensions for how deep the outfield fence should be. The only regulation on the size of the field is the ninety-foot difference between bases, the sixty and a half-foot distance from home plate to the pitchers mound, and the ninety-degree angle of the playing service. Other than that, the field is based on the whim of the team. “Fair territory is, in fact, conceptually limitless and extends endlessly beyond any outfield walls. Home plate is an open corner on the universe, and the limits we place on the game’s endless vistas are merely the accommodation we strike between infinite possibility and finite actuality” (Hart 12).
In life, the playing field is different everywhere that we go as well. No job will ever be the same, as the conditions and location will always change depending on the role and purpose of the position. No day will ever be the same as the last, no minute will ever repeat. All that we can be sure of is the basic framework in which we can work, the fair territory, if you will. After this, it’s all up to whomever we are playing for or working for. We must take this for what it is worth, and appreciate it for all the different opportunities it gives us. We can find places that fit our strengths. Places where maybe it’s a little bit easier to hit a home run or to find a gap that allows us to stretch to reach the extra base in life. We must be patient, however, and learn how to adapt to the environment before we jump into a situation that we cannot handle.
Patience is quite possibly the most important aspect of the game. Waiting for the perfect pitch during an at-bat or staying mentally in-tune without getting a defensive chance for innings is vital to the success of a player and of a team. If one player does not have the patience required, the whole team could suffer. This simple lesson, learned on the sandlots and backyards of youth, is also applicable in other facets of life. Just as timing must be perfect to hit a line drive up the middle, it must also be dead-on in order to successfully solicit a potential customer. We must be willing to wait for opportunities such as promotions, just as minor-leaguers toil seemingly forever before they get their call. We must also learn to deal with failure. Nobody on this Earth is even close to being perfect, and this must be accepted. It is near certain that we will make at least one mistake every day, and it is also certain that if we dwell on these flaws, they will occur over and over again. In baseball, a man who fails seventy percent of the time is a star, and a man who fails sixty percent of the time is an immortal. Obviously, this ratio is not compatible with that of everyday life, but if we can remember this, we will be able to move on from our mistakes without remorse, and be even more successful in similar situations in the future.
Not only does baseball mirror daily life, but it also has a strong correlation with the life cycle. Baseball season begins in the spring, about the same time that the snow melts and new life starts to come up from the ground. Like children, the players begin to re-learn how to play the game during spring training practices, eventually beginning the season when spring has finally separated itself from winter enough to come into its own. By the time the heat of summer comes, baseball has grown into its adult form. It is natural and in the prime of its life. There are few things more beautiful than a baseball game on a summer night. The white uniforms of the home team seem to glow under the floodlights and the outfield grass looks as green as the rolling hills of Ireland. The air is still warm, but the humidity disappears with the sun. The smell of popcorn is in the air as the hum of the crowd provides an ample soundtrack to the smooth flow of the game. Nights become cooler as baseball enters the twilight of its life in September, and by the end of October it has passed away with the green life of summer and spring. Baseball has a constant presence for these eight months; day after day, week after week, month after month. It becomes a part of our lives, as we easily adjust our daily routine to make room for the game on the radio, or browsing through the box scores in the morning paper. Football is an event because it is a special event once every week. People clear out schedules for football afternoons, but they don’t for baseball. Why? Baseball isn’t a demanding lover. Baseball doesn’t need full attention for every game. Baseball doesn’t get jealous of other commitments. Baseball understands us just as we understand it. It’s content with a little love and attention, but will never jump out at us if we don’t watch. The course of a football season can be changed on any Sunday afternoon, but if the boys enter a baseball game in third place in the morning, there’s a good chance that they’ll be in third place that evening, whether we watch them or not. The national relationship with baseball has matured to the point where we trust each other to remain as a constant even without attention for every inning of every game. Perhaps this is why a depression seems to set in when the season ends. Perhaps it is why the air finally seems to snap into winter mode when the last out is made. Perhaps this is why the sun seems to shine a little softer the next morning.
“Maybe it is the grindingly long, 162-game season, which allows for so many promising and disheartening plotlines to take shape, only to dissolve again along the way, and which sustains even the most improbable hope past any rational span; or maybe it is simply the course of the year’s seasons, from early spring into mid-autumn—nature’s perennial allegory of human life, eloquent of innocent confidence slowly transformed into wise resignation. Whatever it is, there is something of twilight in the game, something sadder and more lyrical than one can quite express. It even ends in the twilight of the year: All its many stories culminate in one last, prolonged struggle in the gathering darkness, from which one team alone emerges briefly victorious, after so long a journey; and then everything lapses into wintry stillness—hope defeated, the will exhausted.” (Hart 16)
Each winter is followed again by the promise of spring, and the cycle begins anew. Players come and go, but the game is eternal, having been barely changed in the century and a half of its existence. Football, hockey, and basketball have had to make rule changes, added additional tactics, and changed equipment over the same time period, but a baseball fan from the very beginning of the 20th century would still recognize the game today as the game that he had watched in his time. Players come and go, breaking in with a flash and riding out into the sunset of late autumn, both of the season and of their lives. “The young players seem proud of their easy condition, as if youth were virtue. The young players tease the old ones who puff, especially all the old relief pitchers with little potbellies… Only one in five will become a big leaguer. And when that fortunate one in five has made it, he will begin to puff, and he will hear the hungry generations behind him” (Hall 31). In the same way that human life goes on after an individual life is over, the game of baseball goes on after a career ends. “Baseball is a game of years and decades. Al Kaline’s children grew up. Rocky Colavito was traded, left baseball, became a mushroom farmer, and came back to baseball as a coach. Jim Bunning turned into a great National League pitcher and retired…And Kaline kept on hitting line drives” (Hall 10). As sure as we are that the sun will set behind the third base line at Wrigley Field, we can be just as sure that baseball will be the same game. There will still be the old heroes, there will be the nervous rookies, and there will be the timeless managers.
Managers play a very interesting role in baseball, because compared to other sports there is far lower levels of in-game strategy. Everybody uses the same defensive formation, everybody puts power hitters in the third, fourth, and fifth spots in the lineup, and they all use a leadoff hitter with a high on-base percentage. There are only very general and very situational strategies in baseball. For instance, a manager could like to bunt more or he could hope that his players can hit a lot of home runs. He could use the bullpen liberally or opt to stay with his starters long into games. There are also very situational strategies. Situations late in games are very specific when it comes to the number of outs and men on base, and the batter coming to the plate. These situations can make or break a ball club.
When approaching a tricky situation, there are always millions of methods of attack. Would it be better to go all at once and hope everything falls into place instantly, or to hand assemble a step-by-step process that will ensure success over a longer period of time? Should many different styles be integrated, or should the tried and true technique be left untouched? Do you give a failed approach another shot, or rather opt for an unproven idea? If an unorthodox tactic fails, you become the goat, but if it succeeds, you are seen as a strategical genius. While these questions have pertinence in many aspects of life, they have a very strong importance in the game of baseball. Everybody has their own coaching style. Some favor small ball; the art of bunting, stealing, and sacrificing in order to “manufacture” runs. Others believe in letting their players slug it out, hoping to simply out-power their opponents. While many pitching coaches allow their starter to work as far as he can, in hopes of letting him finish what he started, others believe that certain specialists have better opportunities of stopping batters. When a hitter has a hitless day going into the last inning, some coaches will let him hit, others will bring in a pinch-hitter. Like the real-life situations, there is never a wrong answer, never a method without a strong argument backing it up, and never a perfect option, but over time, everyone discovers their own style through a process of trial and error.
We as an American people have figured out our own coaching style. We believe in out-slugging opponents in the majority of situations, but we will sacrifice if the situation calls for it. We know that we can rely on our defense, and will almost always let our starters go the distance. We have always been willing to rally from behind, no matter what the situation. We are the reigning champions, the greatest team to ever grace the playing field. We know our roles, and are willing to accept them, and therefore will always be among the elite.
In baseball, more than any other game, there are definite roles. The defensive positions are unique, and while there are definite similarities in the outfield and the middle infield, players who are all-stars at one position can easily falter at another. Even in one position, players can have different roles. There are many different kinds of pitchers, from the starter to the closer, the workhorse reliever to the left-handed specialist. The key to success lies in accepting these roles. No individual can be above their team, and every team must know that it can not function without any individual. The home-run hitter wouldn’t drive in half as many runs without the singles hitters, and the starting pitchers wouldn’t pick up many wins without the help of their bullpen. On the other hand, no one player can make a difference in a ballgame. Mickey Mantle, mentioned earlier, once had a batting average of .400 with eleven Runs Batted In and three home runs in a losing World Series Effort (Leavy 203). Even a fantastic performance such as this one couldn’t create victories because of the lack of production from his teammates. Mantle, however, was very understanding of the benefits of putting team success over individual success. According to Ralph Hauk, Mantle’s manager for many years, “if he struck out three times and the team won, he was a happy guy in the clubhouse. But he could have a great day and nobody’d know it” (Leavy 213). When these roles are acknowledged, success is rarely out of reach.
Social roles are very similar to the roles of baseball. The most successful industries are the ones in which all employees are content with their job and what they must do. Those higher up on the corporate ladder know that they rely on the support of the laborers underneath them, and those same laborers understand that they would not have the job if not for their superiors. We also know our roles as citizens. We live in a place as secure and just as America because of the strong, but fair, government that we support. This government runs because of the taxes that we pay, and we realize the justification behind this. We know that by being able to function together, we will continue to live and flourish in the most powerful country in the world.
The idea of having to function together is more prominent in baseball than in most other team sports due to the large amount of time that these players spend together. A game nearly every day means having to spend eight to ten hours together when warming up, the game, and leaving after the game are all added together. In most sports, these types of days would be broken up by practices, where the players would only have to spend a few hours together. While this does create stress, it also creates a sense of family among the teammates that is not evident in other sports. The dugout is a special place. Unlike other benches, it is enclosed, providing the players with a sense of a home, protected and separated from the crowd surrounding it. Inside this small space, the twenty-five men turn from acquaintances to friends to brothers. American society is based around the family, and baseball is built around teammates. There’s something magical about being on a baseball team. The downtime during the game lets you learn about your teammates in ways that are impossible in the fast-paced environments of other sports.
Everybody on the team is in the same boat. Everybody misses the family that they leave behind when they go on the road. Everybody feels the pressure of being kept on the big league roster. Everybody knows what it is like to break in for the first time, and everybody learns from their elders how to leave the game gracefully. There is a story about Mickey Mantle taking a teammate ten years his junior, Bobby Cox, under his wing. Cox was a non-drinker, a rarity in the world of baseball in the 1960s. Mantle was one of the biggest alcoholics of his day. However, it was Mantle that went out of his way to treat Cox to a milkshake after games whenever they were on the road (Leavy 242). He had no responsibility to do this, but because Cox had been put into his family, Mantle treated him like any family member should be treated.
While this family atmosphere should be a relief, as any worker can testify to, people want to succeed more when they are succeeding for people that they love and people that support them. Because of this, the family atmosphere of a baseball team creates even more pressure than an atmosphere where everybody is just showing up.
Pressure is prominent in all sports, but it is magnified exponentially in baseball. Unlike other team sports, baseball has the unique quality of being a one-on-one game inside of a bigger team contest. The pitcher versus the batter. No one else is of any use. There is no safety valve, no way to pass to a teammate, no way to use a block. “There are few spectacles in sport as splendid and pitiable as the batter defiantly poised before all that endless openness” (Hart 14). It is pure, it is simple, and in the most perfect of situations, it is timeless. The world stands still while the pitcher delivers. Thousands watch as the hitter cocks his bat. There could be one pitch, there could be fifteen. Curveballs, fastballs, line drives, foul tips. One will be the hero, the other the goat. They hold the outcome on their shoulders. The pressure is unmatched. Mickey Mantle, one of the greatest ballplayers of all time, is described as handling the pressure by feeling like the team was on his shoulders. “He never showed anyone up, never called anyone out, never blamed anyone but himself. ‘When you’re that intense, sometimes you’re too hard on yourself,’ Eli Grba said. ‘You beat yourself to death. And he did’” (Leavy 187).
It is situations like this that make the real world so much easier to handle. The battle between the writer and the deadline, the business and the budget, the mortgage payment and the bank; all are individual battles that play a part in the larger scheme. They all have the ability to make or break the outcome, but they also have the ability to seemingly go away, only to be breathing down your neck after a minute, a day, a month, or a year. The perpetual goal becomes routine, but the strain is anything but. The ability to thrive under the demands that are forced down separate the great from the average, and the average from the poor.
This constant load never really ends. It can slow down for a period of time, but it will never really go away. Day in and day out, under the hot sun and late into the night, for eight months, there is baseball. Like real jobs, there are few off days, and every day is filled. The physical and mental strain is rarely seen in other sports. While one game isn’t that demanding, the stretch of thousands of innings becomes tiresome, no matter how much it is loved. Legs become tired, arms grow stiff, and it becomes hard to focus. Great endurance is required, as is in any profession. In order to be good, one must overcome the tire of the days, and be able to focus through the rigors of the daily grind. Very few players can come to the ballpark and perform everyday, which is what makes someone like Cal Ripken Jr. one of the greatest of all time. He joined the elite 3000 hit and 400 home run clubs, made 19 All-Star game appearances, and won a World Series, quite remarkable for someone who didn’t take a day off for 2,632 consecutive games (“Cal Ripken Jr.”).
The ability to do this comes through the true love. Whether it is in baseball or any other field, passion is required to do the most exceptional job possible. In Lou Gehrig’s famous farewell speech, he reminds us that he, “…is the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.” (“Lou Gehrig” 1) For some, baseball is a reminder of family. For others, it is something to look forward to at the end of a long day. Baseball will never walk out on you; it will always be right by your side. Always, between the green grass and the blue skies, there will be boys and men throwing the pearl around, there will be hot dogs and Cracker Jack, and there will be the friend in the seat next to you, who you have never met, but feel as if you have known forever. When one takes a look at the game, it is easy to realize that “baseball connects American males with each other, not only through bleacher friendships and neighbor loyalties, not only through barroom fights but, most importantly, through generations” (Hall 49). We are in the constant cycle of the sport, and no matter what, we can never truly leave it behind. Whether we like it or not, our whole nation is part of the game, not just an innocent bystander, but rather a truly vital organ. Baseball is our country’s conjoined twin, and we are connected by the heart.
No matter how emotionally connected we are to baseball, there will always be social benefits of the game as well. Baseball can be credited as one of the founders of the modern civil rights movement, as it was there that “separate but equal” was pushed out of the way. On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson made his major league debut (“Jackie Robinson Stats”). African-Americans were never forbidden from playing, but they had been separated into their own league, dubbed the Negro Leagues. Robinson’s impact was huge, and in just a few decades, the Major Leagues were integrated. This was not a one-man show, however. Many other unsung heroes played a large part in this extremely difficult social progression.
One of these heroes was Buck O’Neil. Originally a star for the Kansas City Monarchs, playing alongside legends such as Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and Cool Papa Bell, O’Neil went on to be the first black coach in the Major Leagues. He had the attitude that the Major Leagues were looking for, but he came along too early to be the first black player in the big leagues. But when asked about this, he showed his joy and passion for the game by saying, “[Baseball] is as good as sex; it’s as good as music. It fills you up. Waste no tears for me. I didn’t come along too early – I was right on time” (O’Neil 3). Buck O’Neil was a team player, in every sense of the term. One of the best players of his time, he was often overshadowed by his teammates on the Monarchs, the Yankees of the Negro Leagues. He realized that he was good enough to be in the Majors, but instead of complaining, he did something about it. Through scouting and coaching, O’Neil was able to make an even bigger impact on the game than if he would have played. He didn’t necessarily have the glory, but he was willing to let other people accept it in order to help the game as a whole. At one point, he received a letter from a fan complaining about the high numbers of black players that O’Neil had signed for the Cubs. The fan couldn’t have worded it any more perfectly, saying, “What are you trying to do? Make the Cubs look like the Kansas City Monarchs?” (O’Neil 192). In fact, he wasn’t trying to move the Monarchs to Chicago, but rather black culture into white culture. The nation loved baseball during the middle of the twentieth century more than any other period in history, and O’Neil’s foresight was incredible. When Jackie Robinson finally made it to Brooklyn, O’Neil sent him a letter applauding his efforts. “I can't go, but I'm so happy you are there 'cause I know that means my son and my grandson will be there” (England 4).
During this same time period, the United States was in the midst of some very serious international conflicts. With World War II and the Korean War occupying most of the national attention from 1941 to 1953, baseball provided a much needed getaway device. In 1942, Major League commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis sent President Roosevelt a letter in order to ask if the President wanted the League to shut down during wartime. Roosevelt responded with an unquestionable opinion, saying, “I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going…And that means that [the work force] ought to have a chance for recreation and for taking their minds off their work even more than before.” For many players, however, these times were anything but. In Roosevelt’s letter, he mandated that, “individual players who are active military or naval age should go, without question, into the services” (Roosevelt 2-5). Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Bob Feller, and many others joined the services during these times of need, sacrificing their own personal glory in order to protect their country. Williams, a Hall-of-Fame player, is widely considered the best all around hitter of all time. He lost three years of his prime to World War II, and was still able to chalk up 2,654 hits and a .344 batting average over his career (“Ted Williams Stats”). With the addition of this lost time, it is incredible to wonder what could have been. Certainly, Williams must have wondered these same thoughts, but he went without as much as a flinch into the Marine Corps. He didn’t see himself as any higher than any other soldier, and saw no need to receive special treatment.
With the absence of a military draft in the United States for about four decades, there is almost no more of this type of behavior left. Athletes see no reason to leave their million dollar careers in order to risk their lives. This makes those who do even bigger heroes. Mitch Harris was a pitcher who was picked in the thirteenth round of the 2008 Major League draft, but there is a catch. Harris is not like most of the other players eligible to be selected, as he graduated from the United States Naval Academy. Per Academy rules, every student must serve five years upon graduation, no matter what job is being offered to them. There is an opportunity to opt out after a student’s second year in school, but Harris did not take advantage of this. Navy was the only Division I school to recruit him out of high school, and he realized that he owed them his right arm for the opportunity that they presented him. Without the Academy, he may not have been switched from a reliever to the starting rotation, and he may not have been as big of a prospect as he is today (Bradley 1).
It is no coincidence that these athletes serve their country. Baseball players have always had a special place in the hearts of Americans. Baseball players look like everyday people, those who you could find down the street or at the grocery store. There are no physical requirements in the game. You don’t have to be tall like in basketball, or physically huge like in football. Baseball is, and always has been, a game for the common man. The players wear everyday clothes, from the button-up shirts to the belted pants, and the coaches look no different. When someone cheats to get to the top, by using steroids or other methods, the fans show vehement disapproval, but at the same time rally behind the players who do things the right way. We love the kid, fresh from the minors, who stretches for the extra base. We appreciate the seasoned veteran who stays with the team that drafted him, from World Series to last place finishes. We all cheered for the Red Sox when they won their first championship in nearly a century, and we all were exasperated when the Yankees won their 26th in the same time period. Baseball is built around the players who work their hardest everyday and never take a play off. America is built around the workers who go into the offices and factories every morning without complaint.
One of the most famous plays in baseball history, Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ‘Round the World,” which won the 1951 pennant for the New York Giants, was the result of a matchup between two young men who came out of these blue collar, working class families. “Bobby Thomson [the batter] and Ralph Branca [pitcher], the two pivotal figures in the final game’s final play, epitomized this link. Both came from large immigrant working-class families; both had been raised and lived in the New York area, and, according to legend, had kissed their mothers good-bye when they left for the game that morning” (Tygiel 35). Before the age of huge contracts, most players even became a part of the community in which they played, often working in the off-season alongside the fans that adored them throughout the summer (Tygiel 147). This connection is just one more way that baseball players are linked to the America. They aren’t some distant species, absent from all connections to the rest of the country, separated from the fans that cheer them on. They are a living, breathing part of society. They are men who put in their eight to ten hours a day, every day, just like everybody else.
So it turns out that baseball does not affect our culture. It is our culture. We, as Americans, grow up around the game whether we like it or not. It is a never changing presence, from Little League to the Big Leagues, the sandlot to Yankee Stadium, t-ball to 100 mile-per-hour fastballs. With the songs of birds in the spring come the cracks of the bat, and the smack of leather ball on leather fades with the cooling of the temperature. This is as sure as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. Life has been compared, in various instances, to a dance, a song, and a journey, but I would like to suggest that it is a ballgame. There are ups and downs, winning takes sacrifice and luck, and sometimes it takes a few extra innings. Those who succeed are those who put the team before themselves, and are willing to compete every day without taking a break. There are underdogs and favorites, blowouts and come-from-behind nail-biters. But it is always a little surprising, always a little bit different, and always fun. Baseball is our game. Baseball is our pastime. Baseball is who we are.
For Works Cited please email letterstopilky@gmail.com
