| Like life in traditional society, but unlike football and | | | | Today, the baseball season follows a traditional pace, |
| basketball, the other two major American team sports, | | | | following the cycle of the active part of the agricultural |
| baseball is not governed by the clock and amazes | | | | year. Baseball season begins with the coming of spring, |
| many foreigners that it is the "national sport" in a | | | | stretches through the long hot days of the summer, |
| fast-paced United States. Being a very popular team | | | | and culminates, like the growing season with its |
| sport, apart from North America also in Latin America, | | | | harvest, in the fall. From November through March, |
| the Caribbean and East Asia, baseball is a bat-and-ball | | | | baseball players were inactive once, but now most of |
| game in which a pitcher throws a fist-sized hard ball | | | | them migrate to the warmer climates of Central and |
| past the hitting area of a batter. The batter, who | | | | South America. |
| belongs to the other team, then attempts to hit the ball | | | | Finally, just as rural societies everywhere observed the |
| with a smooth, cylindrical bat made of wood or metal. | | | | three phases of the growing season with festivals, so |
| The team will score only when the batter manages to | | | | does baseball. There is the opening day of the season |
| successfully batting the ball and then runs over four | | | | marked by the arrival of spring. Then the annual |
| markers existing on the diamond-shaped baseball field, | | | | All-Star Game matching the best players from the two |
| placed on a ninety feet distance from each other and | | | | major leagues comes in midsummer, and last in |
| called bases, while his opponents try at the same time | | | | October, the baseball championship competition called |
| to catch the ball and successfully throw it by using their | | | | "World Series," often called the "fall classic," begins. |
| hands to their teammates located at each of the four | | | | With worldwide famous players, like Babe Ruth, Lou |
| bases before the batter manages to cover the last | | | | Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio, baseball's golden age |
| ninety feet and reach the last base. | | | | transformed these sports athletes to epic figures who |
| While a football game comprises exactly sixty minutes | | | | inspired many and reminded people why keeping our |
| of play and a basketball game forty or forty-eight | | | | roots alive should be considered of extreme |
| minutes, baseball has no set game duration. The pace | | | | importance. In fact, a measure of baseball's standing at |
| of the game is therefore leisurely and unhurried, like the | | | | the heart of American life is its transcendence of the |
| world was once, before the deadlines, schedules and | | | | boundary between popular and high culture. More than |
| hour wages. As a matter of fact, baseball belongs to | | | | the other two favorite American sports, baseball has |
| that time when people had all day to play a game. | | | | had a "crossover appeal," attracting interest from |
| Much like traditional rural life, baseball proceeds | | | | groups with little else in common. It is first and foremost |
| according to the rhythm of nature, specifically the | | | | a form of popular entertainment. But it has also been |
| rotation of the Earth around itself and the Sun. In fact, | | | | the subject of serious literally treatment and rigorous |
| during its early years, baseball was not played during | | | | quantitative analysis. In the national life of the United |
| the night, which meant that this traditional leisure game | | | | States, baseball has made a place for itself in both the |
| was over before sunset at the latest. | | | | arts and sciences. |