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 It has been replaced by a variety of things, including other sports and other forms of entertainment and activity.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 became America's favorite pastime in an era which it served as a fitting symbol of American culture. Children with a bat and ball (or anything which could stand in for a bat and ball in a pinch) playing in a field or on a city street seemed to be emblematic of the United States in the days before television beckoned us to spend our leisure time indoors.

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.

Football isn't the only reason baseball has ceased to be America's national pastime. Other sports came into vogue and cable television became available, offering television audiences more than a handful of channels to choose from. With the arrival of home video gaming systems in the late 1970s followed soon after by personal computers, baseball lost the attention of young people, traditionally the core of its fan base. The sport is now more important to the citizens of other nations than it is in the country where it was first played and teams from Latin America and Asia regularly trounce US teams in international games. It's a reminder that while baseball's status as our favorite pastime may be very much in doubt, the sport itself is very much alive and well.

Some of baseball's wounds have come at its own hand. The 1994 World Series was cancelled due to a player strike. Major League Baseball has done an incredibly poor job of dealing with steroid use in the league, claiming it bears no responsibility for the problem every time a scandal hits the news. The NFL on the other hand provided an example baseball would do well to follow when a steroid scandal came to light in the league. The NFL took responsibility, acted immediately and has not been plagued by recurrences as has Major League Baseball.

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.