“Baseball? It’s just a game- as simple as a bat and ball. Yet, as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. It’s a sport, business- and sometimes even religion.”
Ernie Harwell (“The Game for all America,” 1955)
“Baseball is an allegorical play about America, a poetic, complex and subtle play of courage, fear, good luck, mistakes, patience about fate and sober self-esteem.”
Saul Steinberg
Certainly very passionate statements! Ernie Harwell and Saul Steinberg couldn’t be more correct about baseball reflecting the spirit of America. And baseball certainly is a “game for all America.”
Baseball is basically, a “bat-and-ball sport” played between two teams. Each team is made up of nine players. The goal of the game is to score runs by hitting a ball and touching the “bases.” The “bases” are four corners of a ninety foot square, or “baseball diamond.”
A professional game is made up of nine “innings.” An inning is a turn at batting that each team gets. Whenever the fielding team manages to get three “outs”, the teams switch between fielding and batting. The winning team is the team with the most runs at the end of a game. A baseball game involves at least one umpire who makes decisions about the outcome of each play. The umpire usually stands behind the catcher so that he has a good view of the strike zone.
Professional Major League Baseball teams in North America are divided into the National League (NL) and the American League (AL). Both leagues have three divisions each; East, West and Central. The playoffs, which culminate in the World Series, determine the champion of Major League Baseball, every year.
Most people assume that baseball originated in the States. This however, is a misconception. Baseball actually originated in England even before 1755. This was noted in the recently-authenticated diary of a lawyer named William Bray. But it is in the United States that baseball gained actual popularity, although the game does have a following in a few other nations as well. It continues to enjoy phenomenal popularity in the States, even today. It was in the 1860s that semi-professional baseball began in America. And it wasn’t long before newspapers began declaring baseball the “national game” of America.
Baseball may have originated elsewhere, but it is in the USA that the true spirit of baseball is celebrated. The song “take me out to the ballgame,” which is the unofficial baseball anthem; reflects this spirit. Baseball has certainly managed to catch a place in the hearts of all Americans.
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