And I have no doubt this baseball season is going to be a trying one, with attention all season long perversely tuned in to Barry Bonds' pursuit of the career home run record. Sort of like the sporting version of the Anna Nicole Smith decomposition. (And how ironic that Bonds reportedly is subjected to constant death threats because his accomplishments are 'tainted' by drug use. It wasn't too many years ago that Hank Aaron, the man who holds the record, was himself subjected to similar treatment because his efforts were 'tainted' due to the color of his skin.)
In any case, this will only ratchet up the complaints of trouble-makers like hortense who proclaim, "baseball is NOT the national pastime anymore!" To which I can only reply, "duh!"
Baseball was dominant in the first half of the last century for a lot of good reasons. First of all, it was effectively the only sport. The NFL was in its infancy. College sports were mainly the concern of the few who went to college. The NBA and NHL and, amazingly, even snowboarding didn't even exist yet.
What's more, the game was woven into the fabric of life. Everyone played in the afternoon. You would probably take your break from the factory floor and run into the sales office, where they had a radio, to get an update on the score. On the way home on the streetcar, you might hear, "yeah, Appling doubled his first two times up, drove in three runs, and we held on, 4-2." At dinner, especially if there were sons in the family, information would be shared on exactly what had happened...and, "by the way, did you hear the darn Yankees won again?" Even a disinterested wife or daughter could not avoid being exposed to the names and the lingo of the game. It had no competition; it did not divide on the basis of politics or religion (and eventually, even on race); and in most places, it was as safe as talking about the weather, even if Cubs/Sox or Yankee/Giant/Dodger loyalties did generate more lively discussion in some cities.
Yes, those days are gone. And in that sense, obviously baseball is no more the national pastime than churning your own butter. But this is different--FAR DIFFERENT--from the erroneous accompanying claim that baseball is no longer America's favorite sport. The elevation of this myth to accepted fact is largely backed by the assertion, "football has better TV ratings." Like a White House spinmaster standing behind his podium, this is a distracting, fallacious claim designed to deflect attention from the actual truth.
Yes, on a Sunday afternoon in Cincinnati in the middle of October, more people are going to be watching the Bengals game on TV than were viewing the Reds play on a Tuesday night a couple months before. But so what? The NFL plays one day a week. The NBA and NHL a couple times a week. Colleges follow a similar schedule. Baseball plays virtually every day for six months. Detractors claim that makes for an 'unfair' comparison. So what? You want fair? Have the NFL play six times a week.
It seems obvious to the point of absurdity to compare how many people actually buy tickets to attend sporting events in a season--period. (And total TV ratings follow in lockstep). Isn't this the way leadership is judged anywhere else? Is the nation's 'number one' automobile determined by how many vehicles are sold after 7pm? Do corporations report their sales and earnings just based on what happened south of the Mason-Dixon line? "Top" is the equated with "total".
So stop for just a second and guess how many total people annually pay to attend (or view on TV) the following sports: Major League Baseball; minor league baseball; the NFL; college football; the NBA; and college basketball. Rank them in order in your mind.
Then take a look at this and understand who unquestionably is #1:
diderot
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