Recreational Holidays

Is Baseball Still the American Pastime?

Baseball is the American national pastime. At least, we all think of it as holding that lofty perch, don’t we? But the truth of the matter is that it has been a very long time since baseball was the most popular sport in the country. While it has firm roots as once being a sport of huge social and cultural importance, that is not the case anymore. It has been replaced by a variety of things, including other sports and other forms of entertainment and activity.

Baseball was the American pastime since it was emblematic of broader American culture at the time. It was children or young people playing in an open field or perhaps in the street. A ball and bat or any reasonable substitutes which were at hand and you could play.

The game had a casual, easy going pace for a society which was much more casual itself. Each pitch is separated by a pause, each moment of intensity is broken up by a break. It matched our society which, without the internet or even television, had a much longer attention span.

The game was a perfect fit for the medium of radio. Baseball’s slower pace could translate to radio with the work of gifted broadcasters who could describe the action as it happened; if you’ve ever listened to baseball on the radio, you already understand how well the medium pairs with the game. When television came along, baseball came to the small screen, but the rhythms of baseball are not a natural fit for television. Football however proved to be an excellent fit for the new medium and came to overshadow baseball’s popularity in a few short decades.

Football has a physicality which makes it perfectly suited for television. The TV audience could see the speed of the game and almost feel the force of the impact during game play. The faster pace of the game made it exciting to watch and in comparison to baseball, the games themselves moved along at a rapid pace and came to a conclusion more quickly. Before television, football’s audience was limited - the sport did not work well on radio.

It’s more than football that has caused baseball to lose its long held status as America’s pastime. Not only did football eclipse baseball’s popularity overall, but other sports became more popular, video games came to the home and cable television gave viewers more choices. Once the internet became common in American homes, this also took a large bite out of baseball’s former core audience of young people. Baseball is now more popular in some other countries than it is here in the land of its birth, something you may be reminded of the next time you see a US team demolished by teams from the Dominican Republic, Japan and many other baseball-loving nations.

Meanwhile, baseball shot itself in the foot by allowing the World Series to be cancelled during a strike in the 90s. It then mishandled the steroid situation and did not take any responsibility for it. Conversely, football also suffered from a steroid problem but confronted it face on and solved it once and for all.

Sadly, baseball is no longer America’s favorite pastime. Baseball will always be an iconic American sport and a part of our culture, but it certainly seems that the heyday of professional baseball is behind us now.