The late announcer Jack Buck once declared, “It’s such a beautiful sport, with no politics involved, no color, no class.”
A sport for all times, baseball unites people in a way that few ideals in the modern world are able.
The sport has endured its share of legalistic hardships, but the spirit of the game endures in spite of a contemporary culture that seeks to undermine its relevance. A sport for young and old alike, baseball is our hidden treasure, merely overlooked by those who claim the sport is synonymous with bygone generations.
To some extent, these critics are correct. Our modern culture dictates that technology rules every aspect of our lives. In this culture where traditional values are often sacrificed in favor of efficiency, baseball is an abnormality. The slow-paced nature of the sport does not lend itself to the modern dogma that preaches instant satisfaction over hard-earned success.
Baseball is slow. It requires patience. But it rewards its devotees. These core elements of the game are fundamental to the very essence of the game itself. According to Bryan Curtis in the New York Times, the sport became known as the “national pastime” to “connect baseball to the public’s health and well-being.”
At its genesis, baseball became a cathartic tool to promote virtues that could benefit humanity. Is it the case that there are no longer lessons to be gleaned from the game?
Take, for instance, the notion of a father teaching his son how to play catch, or a group of young boys gathering at a local park to field a pickup game. Healthy ideals such as teaching, camaraderie and competition are reinforced through baseball’s simplicity.
Baseball is a great teaching tool for the youth who are experiencing the distraction of technology at an earlier age than ever before.
As former MLB player Doug Glanville asserted last week for the New York Times, “There is something transformational about connecting with the game at the right time in your life — almost always in youth — when you learn to fully embrace its character and every potential: the patience and endurance required, the long season, the triumph, the forgiveness. When you fall in love with this game, there is no doubt.”
Contrary to clichéd belief, baseball continues to maintain significant relevance despite the frenetic behavior of modern culture. The fact that people recognize this timelessness is a great sign that the bygone generations are still important no matter how antiquated their ideas may appear.
Baseball is still a force that transcends humanity.
Reach the columnist at mrrich2@asu.edu. Follow the columnist @cshmneyrichard
