Week 1- America's National Game

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 games can be over in just two hours. After thinking about this passage, I realized that his statement about cricket being too slow is probably even more true today than when he wrote them. In America, the average attention span seems to get less every year because younger generations revolve so much around technology. In the early 1900s, cricket was too slow for Americans and today, baseball is too slow for many Americans. I understand that Spalding intended for this passage to show his nationalism but as I interpreted it in today’s world, the lack of attention span is not necessarily a good thing for Americans. In his next paragraph, Spalding goes on to discuss how democratic both baseball and America were at the time. This is another example of his nationalism in his article, stating the United States' superiority to other countries. While I agree that the US was way ahead of the times as far as democracy, the fact that baseball did not allow women or blacks to play in the early days does not seem democratic but at the time, the exclusion of women from sports and physical activity as well as the segregation of blacks was the norm in first world counties. Thankfully, the world is a different place today than it was over 100 years ago. The second article this week, "How Home Plate Lives Up to its Name", revolved more around the time period in which baseball was growing and the significance of the name home plate in relation to that. The metaphorical significance to "coming home" was important during world war one and two. A lot of baseball players were called to duty and their goal was similar in both war and baseball. Come home. I can imagine this metaphor between war and baseball giving many players during that time motivation. Not only did this motivate baseball players, but it also motivated fans and again connected the theme of nationalism to the popularity of baseball in the 1900s.