...St. Paul, Minn. — Possibly you've heard all you need to hear about the aesthetics of baseball. And here I am adding innings. But when I get impatient with metaphorical praises of baseball as a poem, or as music, it's because for me baseball predated both as objects of contemplation and participation. Calling baseball a sonnet in flannel or symphony in spikes (it happens), is insulting, or at least patronizing, to baseball. It's just fine its own self. The first time I saw a professional baseball game was at Waters Field in Salem, Oregon. The blue Dodgers logo on the façade of a wood plank circle signified great entertainment within and was every teacher's ideal of proper cursive handwriting. This was 1963, '64. Flannel, in its elegantly simple blowsiness, hadn't yet given way to polyester. My memory of how a player ran in this uniform is like watching an old newsreel in my head. The game then, only a half dozen years removed from the parent team's Brooklyn base, was closer to Gherig and Ruth than to Jeter and Pujols. The Salem Dodgers were a Single A farm team in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization. They had players named Larry Ramsey, Cleo James, a giraffe of a pitcher with Buddy Holly glasses named Gene Brabender, Clarence Jones — who made it to the big leagues and later was the Atlanta Brave's hitting coach — and Jim Lefebvre — who became the 1965 Rookie of the Year with the L.A. Dodgers in an all switch-hitting infield. They also briefly had a catcher named...
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...Baseball America’s Past-time Author: Dane A Smith SO103 JAN 18, 2015 Baseball as we know it today began as a folk game in many civilizations throughout the world, but can be traced back most closely to England. Several alternate versions were played in Colonial America, including stoolball, cricket, and other "bat and ball" games. References to "baseball" can be traced back to 1791, but modern day baseball first came to light, according to many, when Abner Doubleday wrote the rules for the game in 1939 in Cooperstown, New York. Another version of the rules, this time written by Alexander Cartright in 1845, came about for the first official baseball team, the New York Knickerbockers. By 1857, adult baseball clubs came together and created the National Association of Base Ball Players, forming the first official Baseball League. The National League of American Baseball Players would evolve to the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs in 1875. Until the 1880s, African American, "Indian", Southern and Central Americans, played in these baseball clubs, including players Fleet and Welday Walker. However, these players would be demoted out of the Major Leagues in the 1880s, and Major League Baseball would remain a "White Only" sport until 1947 with the signing of Jackie Robinson to the...
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...Baseball In the mid 1800’s a new sport emerged throughout America. They called it baseball, evolved from an old English game. From the moment it was invented it was instantly popular. Today baseball is known as The American Past Time. The baseball community and its athletes continue to grow year after year, as young athletes develop love for the game and its year round battles. Majority of baseball fans and non-baseball fans have been to a major league game and have both seen and felt the energy of the setting. .Baseball is responsible for priceless moments such as a father and son playing catch in the back yard. Many people find baseball too slow and think doesn’t require much skill to play, but as many of my former coaches would say the game is 50% mental and 50% Physical. one of the only sports as my high school coach . A big reason why people are attracted to baseball is because it is one of the only sports that involves a skilled athlete vs another skilled athlete, pitcher verse batter, 1 verse 1. As baseball revolutionized throughout baseball it became bigger and bigger. It reached other countries and they picked up the sport quickly and made their own leagues. Today baseball is one of the most popular sports out of all. Our fore fathers created and established many important things that shaped America to be the way it is today but only one is known as “Americas Past Time”. Baseball originated prior to the civil war, at the time it was called rounders. Rounders...
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...Abstract As you read, you will learn about the wonderful game of baseball and a different outlook on the sport. It is a popular sport in America. The rest of the world looks to America as a guiding force. They view America as the baseball empire of the world. Major league baseball is the envy of the world. Baseball has very broad cultural, social, and geographic impacts that go deeper than we think. We will briefly examine the diverse and changing social, economic, and political meanings of this activity in different countries. Baseball has failed in the promotion in many European and African societies and we will discuss why. Baseball is an international sport that brings great experiences and great memories that last a lifetime. It can be very important in the bond of family. The swing, techniques, bat and balls are important and we will learn why it’s important to have proper training. Also you will read about players that have tarnished the sport and players that have changed baseball forever. Mainly this is a view of the importance of the sport worldwide and how it has changed the world through the guidance of American baseballs influence on the rest of the world. Sport of Baseball Internationally this game is viewed as a very powerful game. Baseball is the same in many ways all over the world. Every player is aiming to knock the ball out of the park or just feel lucky to get on base. Although the game has changed, the history of the...
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...Daniel Ochefu Baseball, Justice and the American Dream Final Paper Due: 5/1/2015 I ‘Like’ Baseball Before taking this course baseball was one of my least favorite things to do in any way simply because I did not know about the sport and the impact it has on many people’s lives to respect the time that the players spend preparing to perform. I was always critical of the amount of work that was put in physically for baseball compared to other sports like basketball, football, hockey and others. I always thought it was not that much because there are almost no physical collisions in games and that was all I really needed to know after I was told that on average games are three plus hours. From everything I have learnt about baseball in this course, there is a respect that I now have for it that I definitely did not have for it before. Being America’s pastime, baseball has been the one constant in America because of its deep history that it promotes and the pride that the fans exhibit. Even during unfortunate events that shake the whole country, baseball finds a way to bring the country together. The most recent one that stood out to me being how the Boston Red Sox brought together a whole city after the terrible Boston Marathon Bombings of 2013 by winning the World Series and using that to help strengthen a city that had been hurt badly by a terrible event. The World Series celebration is normally extravagant and well televised but this one brought all Americans together...
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...Baseball and America have grown up together. In fact, Baseball is such an integral part of our culture that we often take for granted its deep day-to-day significance in our lives. I. Baseball A. Baseball Basics 1. Baseball is a sport played between two teams usually of nine players each. 2. It is a bat and ball game in which a pitcher throws a hard, fist sized, leather covered ball toward a batter on the opposing team. 3. The batter attempts to hit the baseball with a tapered cylindrical bat, made of wood, or a variety of other materials. 4. A team scores runs only when batting, by advancing its players via hits counterclockwise past a series of four markers called bases arranged at the corners of a 90 foot square. 5. The game, played without time restriction, is structured around nine segments called innings. 6. In each inning, both teams are given the chance to bat and score runs. 7. A teams half inning ends when 3 outs are recorded against that team. 8. In the U.S., professional MLB teams are divided into the National League (NL) and American League (AL). 9. Each League has 3 divisions a. East b. West c. Central 10. 4 Teams make the playoffs from each league a. The 3 division leaders b. One wildcard team with the best record among the remaining teams in the league. 11. Each major league ream has a “farm system” of minor league teams at various levels. ...
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...activity of this nature, and this is the ability to forget the destitution and difficulty of everyday life and the capability to be on a level playing field with many people that believe the same way, no matter what socio-economic class they represent. One sport in particular has transcended all other games, has continually been a psychological shelter from pain and hardships of life, and also a cultural rocket breaking through the social barriers in the American society. That sport is simply the most beloved American game of all, baseball. The purpose of this essay is to critically explore a myriad of aspects of life that have been changed due to sports, all the while concentrating on baseball as the main focal point. Further, this work will continually pose the question of how it is conceivable that a single and simple sport could greatly impact a country the way baseball has the United States. At the time of the first foreign inhabitants of North America, life was more difficult than someone of the twenty-first century could have imagined. The hardships were endured by every colonist nearly twenty-four hours a day, with little to relieve their minds of the complexities of early American life. Nonetheless, there was at least one aspect of life that offered them the ability to escape the perennial cruelties of life, and that was sports. Throughout the colonies, no matter north or south,...
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...BASEBALL Baseball is a bat and ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The goal is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond. Players on one team (the batting team) take turns hitting against the pitcher of the other team (the fielding team), which tries to stop them from scoring runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the batting team can stop at any of the bases and later advance via a teammate's hit or other means. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the fielding team records three outs. One turn at bat for each team constitutes an inning and nine innings make up a professional game. The team with the most runs at the end of the game wins. Evolving from older bat-and-ball games, an early form of baseball was being played in England by the mid-eighteenth century. This game and the related rounders were brought by British and Irish immigrants to North America, where the modern version of baseball developed. By the late nineteenth century, baseball was widely recognized as the national sport of the United States. Baseball on the professional, amateur, and youth levels is now popular in North America, parts of Central and South America and the Caribbean, and parts of East Asia. The game is sometimes referred to as hardball, in contrast to the derivative game of softball.In North America, professional Major...
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...Is Baseball Still the American National Pastime? Although baseball has been and may still be considered America’s national pastime, it has not happened without incident. The game of baseball was initially racially segregated, only completing the final desegregation in 1959, twelve years after the signing of Jackie Robinson. It withstood the devastating gambling scandals of the 1920’s Chicago White Sox and the 1980’s Pete Rose scandal. The institution has survived and may have even been made stronger with the steroid and drug scandal of the 1990’s and recent years. Baseball has had difficulties in maintaining a loyal following since the 1994 strike, having to rebuild the fans confidence and or switching the fan base from Anglo to a more diverse ethnicity. Writer George Plimpton, summarized baseball with this passage in Ken Burns Ninth Inning, “It’s always been our great game. Pastime is a funny word for it is not a pastime it has to do with the spirit of the people.” From inception, the great American game of baseball was deemed America’s national pastime. It basically is the same game as earlier versions in the eighteen century and Americans can still claim it as their own, although it is going global with major league teams doing business and recruiting in the Dominican Republic, Japan, Venezuela, South Africa and other locations. Baseball also has to compete with fans of golf, football, basketball, soccer and NASCAR for the attention of fans. Baseball may not be...
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...emancipation and independence very poor and continued to suffer the consequences of exploitative colonialism brought by westerners. However, one of the few positives brought on by western colonialism in Caribbean is the introduction and subsequent spread of baseball. While baseball is commonly known as “America’s Pastime” it’s popularity across the world within the United States, Canada, Mexico, Caribbean islands, South America and Japan makes it far more than just “America’s Pastime”....
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...sports had a major impact on America. Americans used sports to find a source of happiness. Sports were a good distraction it was a way to get away and forget their problems. America’s most popular sports were baseball, boxing, basketball, and track and field. In the 1930’s Americas most played and watched sport was baseball. Back in the 1930’s baseball was a democratic game unlike football and basketball people did not have to worry about their height and weight. Even though major leagues achieved rare levels of stability and no danger of going bankrupt. Baseball still struggled to make profit with fans drifting away renovations and ballplayers salaries decreased due to people not coming to games. But players did not complain they still had a job. However baseball still remained America’s number one sport. Baseball also had a separate team for black people also called the Negro League. Even though they were not as popular as the major league white people started to recognize the Negro league and started to come to their games. Jackie Robison was one of the first African Americans to become a major league baseball player. Boxing was America’s second favorite sport. Gambling became a major effect in boxing. People would make reasonable bets who they think would win in hope earning some extra cash in their pocket and to have a little fun. As boxing was increasing more popularity radios were to as the boxing events were being broadcasted all over America. So families would not have...
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...The Integration of Baseball & its Effect on Social Movements The integration of baseball during 1947-1959 was a time period where barriers were broken resulting in positive social changes that would alleviate class conflicts. Social changes through integration of baseball helped the Civil Rights movements although its major impacts weren’t made until the late 1960s. Baseball players were praised within the sport of baseball; however, their social status still remained the same. What was the impact of the integration of baseball on the Civil Rights movement and the social status of African Americans? These players did great things to help change the game of baseball, but were not respected by majority of their peers. The challenges that did players had to face were ridiculous. Recognized as superstars on the field, baseball players like Jackie Robinson were looked down upon by society because of their skin color. Therefore, the effects of baseball integration on society was crucial for the Civils Rights movement, but its impact was limited at best for individual baseball players and for the collective African American society since their social status as a whole remained the same. This would lead to residual class conflicts. Even the process of baseball integration was not smooth as some teams embraced integration for various reasons such as competitive advantage or box office potential, but others such as the American League’s old guard faced public pressure to limit the integration...
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...The 1920’s: Baseball Uniform The decade of the 1920’s is often characterized as a period of American prosperity and optimism. This was the Jazz Age, the decade of the flappers. The 1920’s opened with an explosion of color and the wailing sounds and fast rhythms of jazz and energetic dancing. It was a time of tremendous change in America. America was one of the victors in the First World War and it enjoyed a period of great prosperity in the twenties. The Americans were opposed to anything that might drag them into another European war. Many Americans simply wanted to enjoy the prosperity that had developed in the previous decade and felt that foreign entanglements would threaten it. For the next decade America kept to herself for the most part. Most Americans enjoyed a high standard of living. Food was plentiful and cheap thanks to the vast quantity produced on American farms. More and more people bought their own houses through mortgages. Thanks to Henry Ford and mass production, one could buy a ford for $290. It was the “Roaring Twenties,” the decade of bath tub gin, the model T, the $5 work day, the first transatlantic flight, and the movie. It was the great age of popular entertainment. Among the world of entertainment, there were sports. Baseball’s growing popularity in the 1920’s can be measured by structural and cultural changes that helped transform the game. Ballparks were being constructed left and right. In 1920 the Cubs Field was opened and in 1926 re-named to...
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...This paper reviews the importance of sports in America during the 1920’s. The 1920’s was a time of amusement in America. People used their hard earned money to watch the world’s greatest athletes. Some of the athletes reviewed in this essay include: Babe Ruth, Benny Leonard, and Harold Osborn. The 1920’s portrayed the importance of sports in the public eye. The authors analyzed in this essay include: Biography Editors, International Olympic Committee, Allen Barra, Jim Sumner, and James B Roberts & and Alexander G. Skutt. The International Olympic Committee, or IOC, has compiled thousands of Olympic athletic accomplishments. Every athlete from the first to most recent Olympics has been compiled into very detailed accounts. The staff at the International...
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...football in the ratings and the eyes of Americans surpassed baseball in popularity. Leading many sports writers and common sports fans to pronounce football as America’s new national past time. However, a national pastime is not created over a mere decade. A sport that encapsulates a nation shares feelings about an event or general trend in the country with the majority of the country and has events within the country interwoven within the sport. Even Professor Gerald Early at Washington University in Saint Louis said that “There are only three things that America will be remembered for 2000 years from now when they study this civilization: The Constitution, Jazz music, and Baseball.” Baseball best captures the essences...
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