Our language, our history, and our culture are indelibly imbued with the distinctive stamp of baseball. No other sport, in fact, no other endeavor, has given our language so many metaphors. Cliches, yes, but wisdom too. Our language would not be the same without the metaphors, cliches, and quotations which baseball has imparted to it. Our history wouldn't be the same either.
Baseball reflects our society, indeed, is our society.
Ours is a nation of immigrants, and the earliest baseball rosters prove it. Baseball was not just America's first sport, it was the world's first non-elitist sport. Ours has been aptly described as the age of the corporate player. Baseball is a game with the power to restore faith. In its infancy baseball healed the wounds of the Civil War.