All About America's Favorite Pastime

Money drives the world of baseball and all other sports in America. Billions of dollars go into stadiums, player contracts, and team equipment every year. The main focus for the economy of baseball in the Tuesday articles were the economics behind baseball stadiums. I've always wondered why the cities have to pay for new stadiums and after reading these articles it seems to be due to greed from the owners of the corporations, as stated in "Major League Baseball, like the NFL, ask taxpayers for free money".   These corporations leverage and strong arm cities to get their stadiums payed for. Citizens of the city, rich and poor, are paying for a stadium that the billionaires at the top would have no problem funding. In addition to having to pay for the stadiums through taxes, several people see gentrification in their neighborhoods due to these new stadiums. That is a good thing for some but can be bad for residents that are no longer able to afford their property due to ris...

The importance of time in baseball is often overlooked do to the lack of a clock of any type. We can see baseball games, such as the 18 inning world series game in 2018, go on for several hours so from the perspective of a fan, time seems to not effect the game at all. However, from the view of a player, time is involved in everything they do. The pitcher needs a set amount of time to go through his routine before every pitch just as a hitter needs a certain amount of time to get from base to base. Over recent years, complaints have rose from fans about the game of baseball being too slow. The article "Play Ball and Do it Faster" by Adam Sobsey touches on these complaints, using statistics and graphs to show how the time per pitch and time per game has increased during recent years. While these statistics are true, the graphs were misleading. The intervals were very small and the graphs made the changes look a lot more significant than they actually are. In the latter half of...

The rising popularity of baseball is an interesting topic to cover. Because it can always be played casually, there are many gray lines as to who did what first. For example, there a several different stories about who threw the first curveball but nobody knows for sure who did. One thing is for sure in the early stages of baseball, however. Al Spalding had a massive contribution to the growth of baseball during the late 1800s and early 1900s. In his 1911 article, "America's National Game", he makes his passion for baseball and his country very clear. He refers back to cricket and Great Britain throughout his article, often comparing them to baseball and America. The way he writes about cricket is interesting. He states that he played and enjoyed cricket himself, however, "cricket would never do for Americans; it is too slow" due our "red-hot blood". He goes on to state that cricket games can go on for up to two days while baseball g...