Now that the 1999 baseball season is in full swing, it seems to be a good time to reflect on why baseball still is, and always should be, the national pastime.

A few years ago, around the time of the strike, there was a number of people suggesting that baseball just wasn’t as important to Americans as it once was.

One can understand why the less enlightened might think this. After all, attendance was down at big league parks, and it seemed like even the most die-hard fans had only bad things to say about the sport.

Doubters also pointed to the tremendous surge in popularity of other sports, particularly basketball. But no matter how popular basketball, football or even (God forbid) hockey might get, they will never be as important to American culture as baseball.

Baseball is so interlaced with American culture, one must ask, “Does life imitate baseball, or does baseball imitate life?”

My reply: both.

First of all, almost anyone can play baseball — and I’m not just talking about at the local park either.

What I’m saying is that with enough practice, practically anyone could play ball in the major leagues.

Haven’t you ever noticed the large number of fat guys playing pro ball?

To play basketball or football you have to be a great athlete or, at the very least, freakishly huge.

But any greasy redneck with a sweet swing or a good slider can get into the majors.

When you think about it, doesn’t that represent us as a nation? Let’s be honest, most of us are built more like Cecil Fielder than Michael Jordan.

Horribly out-of-shape people are accepted in baseball just like they’re accepted in our society. Isn’t that the way it should be?

Also along the lines of appearance, have you ever noticed those guys’ haircuts?

There’s still quite a few pro baseball players doing the mullet-head thing. (Long in back, short on the sides and top).

Most people with a high school education stopped wearing their hair like that when Whitesnake got bumped off the charts.

It’s just another example that major league baseball players are representing all of us through their appearances. NBA stars are always walking around in $2000 suits. Well, how many of us can afford that?

But any Tom, Dick or Harry can afford a bad haircut from Cost Cutters.

Aside from the people who play baseball, the game itself is much more in line with our ideology as a nation.

At least 95 percent of the time you’re playing baseball, you’re not doing anything. Well, unless you’re pitching or catching. But if you’re playing right field, you might go an entire game and only have to field maybe two or three balls.

And sure, you have to back up first base and all that, but there’s still plenty of time to ponder the writings of Sartre.

Baseball is laid back and lazy, just like America. Sure, every now and then we have to truck it 90 feet, but once we get there, we can ask for time and shake the sand out of our cup.

I would even go so far as to suggest that many of the ills in our society could be cured by making society more like baseball.

Take batting average, for instance. I believe that a batting average is the purest form of statistical analysis ever.

A great baseball player might bat around .350 for a season. So shouldn’t other things be rated on the same system?

For instance, if I show up for my job at least one third of the time, shouldn’t that be considered outstanding? If I show up for work two days a week, that’s a .400 average; those are hall of fame numbers.

This whole average thing could spill over into relationships, too. “Honey, I love you about .280.”

It may not get you onto the Don Juan all-star team, but if life was more like baseball, she’d be more than happy with it.

What I’m getting at with all this is that baseball is as American as apple pie shots.

As society races on at a faster and faster pace, baseball is still one thing that lets us take our time and enjoy ourselves.

There’s something very Zen about sitting at a ballpark on a Saturday afternoon, smelling the fresh cut grass, smelling the guy next to you and enjoying the game.

Baseball may not be as exciting as football or as fast paced as basketball.

But baseball stands as a mirror of our society, and therefore, it will always be our game.

---

Ben Godar is a junior in sociology from Ames.