Why we watch baseball
Some not-so-happy doping headlines from baseball pushed me to take a broader perspective on the game. Devotion to baseball sometimes surprises people, especially those who grew up without it outside the United States. Indeed, most fans have, at some point, felt obligated to defend the game, or at least explain its grip on them (usually to others, but sometimes to themselves). I’m not sure that I can do any of that adequately but here are a few thoughts.
The game’s universality
It would probably be easier to explain baseball’s attraction if its fans had a distinctive profile. But because of the game’s widespread and often deep penetration in American society, it is not easy to identify a particular baseball demographic. Indeed, the sport must be one of the most universalized practices in the United States and, not inconsequentially, one of the most democratic.
Witness, for example, the unique ethnic composition of the average major league team. Whites, blacks, Latinos, and increasingly, Asians fill out the staffs of major league teams in almost perfect correspondence to their proportion in American society. [I need some better data on the following, but let’s assume that these numbers are close]. Non-Latino whites compose 59.5% of this season’s major league rosters compared to 73.6% of the US population. Non-Latino blacks represent 14.3% of baseball versus 11.4% of society, Latinos (foreign-born and native) 23.9% versus 10.3%, and Asians 2.3% versus 3.4%. No other profession, especially one so selective, can claim to look like America to such an extent. Even other meritocracies (for example, other professional sports) do not come close. Admittedly, such democracy has not fully penetrated the clubs’ front offices (even if it has begun so with their coaching staffs).
Moreover, baseball’s appeal crosses class lines like no other game. Unlike any other pursuit, baseball inspires reverence and reflection by America’s most gifted minds at the same time it drives colorful and passionate commentary from the mass-public. Baseball attracts a loyal and analytical following among eggheads, and an annual conference attracts scholars armed with data to discuss the ins and outs of the game. This is not to say that the mass public or media analysts are any less studious of the game. While the ivory tower is crowded with intellectuals poring over box scores, some of the most incisive analysis comes from less degreed fans on AM Sports Radio.
The answer: early socialization/indoctrinization
So what explains the pervasive and intense fascination with baseball — a game which is slow and methodical and not at all filled with the cheap thrills and spills that outsiders might say typify American entertainment? The answer, I think, lies in the highly emotional and symbolic nature of Americans’ relationship with the game. Baseball is an integral part of any American youth’s socialization process — a process loaded with affective symbolism and imagery.
Baseball is not actively learned, or even chosen; it is absorbed in the same way loyalties to town, state, and country are. Baseball enters our lives at seven or eight – just when we are at our most impressionable – and is hard-wired into our emotions through song, story, and image. Even our muscle memory is programmed: one learns to reproduce almost instinctively the smooth motion of a shortstop scooping a ground ball and the fluid swing of the bat. Not surprisingly, team preferences form at this age and, for most people, crystallize. A Yankee fan at age seven is always a Yankee fan. Such an affiliation process, incidentally, is analogous to the adoption of political party preferences. A symbolic attachment to a party is inherited almost unwittingly by age 20 – an attachment which for most people endures throughout the lifespan. This symbolic, emotional connection is also why Americans are at a loss to explain in more rational terms the appeal of their game.
And then there’s the drama
How exactly does the game capture our emotions at this early age? Part of the genius of Abner Doubleday, baseball’s presumed architect, was the design of a set of rules which set the stage for individual heroism and tragedy in a way no other game does. Baseball teams play, but individuals win or lose games. The game meanders in its mysterious, sometimes lazy, sometimes raucous, way until it culminates in the ninth inning – the last act of a tense drama in which a player will be singled out as goat or hero (and reminded of such in streaming headlines the next day). No other game focuses such intense, psychologically awesome, attention on a single individual. The memories of these moments remain with fans and players forever (just ask Bobby Thompson, Bucky Dent, or Bill Buckner).
Less prominent players remember their moments as well. Indeed a single heartbreaking strikeout or clutch hit can stamp forever a kid’s impression of the game. I realized this when I was reminded of a friend from high school. A musician more than he was an athlete, Griffin’s treasured moment was a well-timed base hit against the cross-town-rival’s feared pitcher (a kid named Scagnelli — great baseball name). I’m sure baseball triggers this memory for Griffin even twenty-five years later. Or at least I remember it — he must, right? That kind of moment is the power of baseball, whose dramatic and symbolic energy has produced one of the most enduring and democratic practices in America.
