But White denies that there is anything intrinsically American or timeless about the game of baseball. The principle of a natural aristocracy is uniquely manifest in America, and its national pastime appropriately incorporates that principle. Baseball differs from the other major sports in how it applies this principle of equal opportunity for unequal ability to excel. Let us call this American equality the principle of the Declaration of Independence. It combines the principle of individualism with the principles of citizenship.
Baseball is designed to put each individual on the spot periodically.
While a member of a team, the batter is alone. White may be right in his conclusion that in the last twenty years baseball has lost its special resonance as America's pastime. The reason may be less in the change from the reserve clause system to a system of free agency, and a change from franchises rooted permanently in cities to free-floating franchises going to the city with the highest bid than in the disintegration of America itself. Thus baseball may be passing away as the national pastime, as the necessary condition for the existence of our national pastime is the presence of a self-governing nation, proud of her liberty and confident in it. Thus, those who still write ex-Dodger Rick Monday and thank him for preventing the burning of the American flag in centerfield twenty years ago are the true citizens and the true fans.