Baseball . The National Pastime | PBS I'm ready to take the chance. Maybe I'm doing something for my race.  Jackie Robinson Massed Navy bands blare the national anthem at a war bond rally before a game at Ebbets Field, May 8, 1942. Photo Credit: National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, NY The National Pastime leads off with the baseball season of 1941, one of the most exciting of all time. Joe DiMaggio hit in 56 straight games, the longest hitting streak before or since. Ted Williams became the last man to hit .400. And the Brooklyn Dodgers won their first pennant in 20 years. Then the war intervened and women were given the chance to play in a league of their own as baseball's best players became soldiers. On their return, the game  and the entire country  were changed when Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers took the field. With Robinson's historic debut baseball finally became in fact what it had always claimed to be: America's national pastime.

Highlights: Joe DiMaggio's unmatched hitting streak and Ted Williams's quest to break .400 electrify the nation in the summer before America goes to war. As women "man" the homefront, working in factories to help with the war, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League shows Midwesterners a new way to play the game. At war's end, Brooklyn's Branch Rickey defies the baseball establishment with a plan to put a black player on the Dodgers  and bring black fans to Ebbets Field. Taking an oath that he would not strike back against bigotry, former UCLA football star and Negro League standout Jackie Robinson joins the all-white Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, battling racism with spectacular baseball talents that make him the first Rookie of the Year. Dodgers Cookie Lavagetto and Al Gionfriddo team with Yankees Joe DiMaggio and Phil Ruzzuto to make the 1947 World Series an Italian-American baseball showcase. Copyright 2003 WETA. All rights reserved. Sorry, NFL: Baseball Is Still America's Pastime - The Atlantic The Atlantic See our Newsletters > Sorry, NFL: Baseball Is Still America's Pastime Sure, TV ratings suggest otherwise.

But that metric ignores other strong indicators—like local fan-base fervor and enduring cultural relevance—that baseball still matters. Most Popular Text Size Boston Red Sox relief pitcher Koji Uehara during Game 5 of baseball's World Series. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson) In 1960, the great Roger Kahn wrote in Sport magazine that “There is no denying America’s love for baseball, but increasingly the greater excitement seems to be coming from football fields, and that is where it’s likely to be coming in the future.” This was two years after Johnny Unitas, the Baltimore Colts, and the National Football League burst onto the national scene when the Colts defeated the New York Giants in a sudden-death championship game. Historians call it “the greatest football game ever played,” though a better title might be “the first pro football game that most Americans noticed.” Kahn’s piece, to my knowledge, was the first shot in the ongoing “baseball vs. football” debate.

But 63 years later, the topic still heats up again every year around World Series time, and sure enough, in the September 29 New York Times, Jonathan Mahler asked, “Is the Game Over?” Related Story The Need for (and Fun-Sucking Potential of) Instant Replay in Baseball “Baseball,” he writes , “has never been healthier”—in terms of attendance, revenue, and, unlike the NFL and NBA, freedom from labor strife. “So why does it feel so irrelevant?” According to Mahler, baseball has fallen from prominence in the last decade and a half since the home-run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, and he posits that perhaps baseball’s demise has been a result of expansion teams ending up in cities without rich baseball traditions. The best indicator of baseball’s decreasing significance, Mahler writes, is baseball’s national TV ratings compared to those of pro football. But these diagnoses expose some misunderstandings about baseball’s popularity. There’s no disputing that fact that football championship-game viewership dwarfs baseball’s championship-series viewership. But “the World Series vs. the Super Bowl” actually stopped being a contest decades ago.

Since January 14, 1968, when the Green Bay Packers beat the Oakland Raiders before an estimated TV audience of over 39 million, the Super Bowl has consistently drawn more viewers. The most-watched World Series game ever was Game Seven of the 1986 series between the New York Mets and Boston Red Sox, which was seen by around 38.9 million viewers. So even when baseball was supposedly at the forefront of the national conversation, football was already outperforming it in TV ratings. (It’s important to note, however, that ratings for the first four games of the Series are up 15 percent from last year and are the highest for a World Series in four years. Perhaps just as importantly, the ratings are up 28 percent among advertisers’ favorite demographic, the 18-49 age group.) And regarding the “national conversation” and the “broader cultural trends” of modern America, what is meant by culture, and how is baseball lacking? Does culture include film? Has there been a football-related movie in the past few years that has had as much cultural impact as Moneyball or the story of Jackie Robinson’s first year in the major leagues, 42?

Are books a part of culture? Far more books on baseball are published every year than any other sport. According to Forbes, Game Three of this year’s World Series was primetime TV's most talked about show on Twitter by a lot; it stunned fans with the first ever game-ending interference call and inspired more than 480,000 tweets. But what has happened to baseball in recent years, according to Mahler, “has a lot to do with the broader cultural trends that have helped shape modern America.” Expansion, for instance: More franchises have meant more ticket sales and more TV viewers, Mahler says, but “a lot of teams wound up in cities without deep roots in the game.” Mahler quotes Bob Costas as saying, Expansion also helped insure that baseball would become a largely regional sport. Economically, this has been great. Local TV deals are where the money is … The downside is that only a handful of franchises can claim any sort of national profile. If Tampa Bay played Cincinnati in the World Series, I don’t care if the series goes seven games and every game goes into extra innings, baseball is screwed.

(Because, presumably, Tampa Bay and Cincinnati don’t command large national audiences.) It comes down to this: Baseball’s appeal is largely regional, while football’s is national. Is baseball’s comparative irrelevance really the result of the MLB putting teams in cities “without deep roots in the game”? It’s debatable. What cities does Mahler mean? Major League Baseball’s expansions in California and Texas—two states that, between them, are home to seven franchises, nearly a quarter of MLB teams—were all in cities where the Pacific Coast League and Texas League flourished. Likewise, new teams in Florida and Arizona were also homes of a strong minor-league tradition, to say nothing of the home of major-league spring training leagues for decades. When the Braves went from Milwaukee to Atlanta, their new home was a city that had been one of the most venerated in the old Southern League, not to mention the Negro Leagues as well. In fact, every city that the major leagues have moved into since 1960, whether by expansion or relocation, has strong roots in professional baseball. Baseball’s problem, then, is with national recognition, as defined by national TV ratings.

It comes down to this: Baseball’s appeal is largely regional, while football’s is national. Baseball is followed locally, generally by fans who go to games. Football is followed on TV by fans who seldom, if ever, go to the stadium to see the games in person: Back in 2000, a report by MLB’s Blue Ribbon Panel estimated that perhaps 96 percent of all of those who identify themselves as football fans have never been to a pro football game. There are 24 American cities with both MLB and NFL teams. Curious to see what local sports editors and writers really think about what happens when baseball has to compete with football directly for local fan support, I contacted sports departments of those cities’ local newspapers and asked, “Is your town a baseball or football town? Would the majority of your fans rather see the local team in the World Series or the Super Bowl?” Their answers were revealing.

Many of them were along the lines of what one sports editor told me: “Our fans would rather have a World Series win than a Super Bowl, but if our team doesn’t make it to the World Series, they’d rather watch the Super Bowl no matter who’s in it.” Nick Ironside of the Boston Globe, where they’ve seen their teams make it to a plethora of Super Bowls and World Series over the last two decades, told me that while the Patriots and Red Sox were loved equally (and loved by many of the same fans), “In the city area, I’d say the Red Sox are more popular. If you take in the whole region, it’s probably the Patriots.” Roger Hensley of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, however, insists, “In St. Louis, without question folks would prefer a World Series win over a Super Bowl. That’s this year, any year.” Cincinnati’s loyalties, meanwhile, fluctuate between the Reds and the Bengals, says Mike Ball at the Cincinnati Enquirer. But “regular-season baseball has a big following here through radio.

Reds’ broadcasts are one of the three most popular radio shows in the area.” He adds, “My mom doesn’t watch much football, but like a lot of people, she’ll watch the Super Bowl because it’s an event.” The San Francisco Chronicle’s Gerry Spratt says, “Over the last 30 years, it’s pretty much been the 49ers, but I think the consensus in the sports department is that with the Giants in the World Series over the last few years, they’ve caught up. You might say it depends on who it looks like might win, but there’s not a conflict around here.” The Chicago Tribune’s sports editor, Tim Bannon, is adamant: “If we were a one-baseball-team town, the Cubs would be the answer. But it’s a tough call. The Bears probably have more fans than any one team, but that’s because baseball is split among the White Sox and Cubs fans. If they played each other in the World Series, that would top everything. But I’m thinking that’s not going to happen any time soon.” Importantly, though, every writer and editor I spoke to expressed to me that there was no real conflict between the two sports, or between their respective championships.

As a writer at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune rightly pointed out, most fans don’t even have to choose: “The seasons really don’t overlap that much.” In very few cities does a baseball team clearly overshadow a football team, or vice versa—as a sportswriter at the Philadelphia Inquirer put it, “People love both football and baseball, and they want all their teams to win.” America's Pastime: 20 Reasons Why Baseball Will Always Hail over Football | Bleacher Report America's Pastime: 20 Reasons Why Baseball Will Always Hail over Football America's Pastime: 20 Reasons Why Baseball Will Always Hail over Football 1 of 21 Baseball is in every way perfect; there are no flaws in the sport. Everything flows together perfectly. It is built around God's favorite shape, a diamond, and the rest is covered by the most incredible grass on the planet. Nothing beats sitting in your favorite ballpark, watching your favorite team on a hot, sunny day, with a hot dog smothered with all the goods in one hand and an ice cold beer in the other. This scene is symbolic to American culture.

It has gone through its share of changes, from the dead ball era, to the expansion era, to the long ball era. But the sport has always been popular, and it always will be. Football has been around for 60, 70 years tops. Baseball? Circa 1839, 172 years and more popular than ever. Don't get me wrong. I love football; I think it is a great sport. But there's something about baseball, something magical, that will always make it America's sport, America's pastime. The Home Run vs the Touchdown 2 of 21 Ezra Shaw/Getty Images Nothing is more beautiful than a homerun; not the Empire State Building, the Pyramids or the Great Wall of China. Even for the people who don't care about baseball, it is something that they can appreciate. Every single touchdown is arguable; you've heard it before. "He was holding, call that, ref!" "Look, his foot was out of bounds riiiight THERE! Challenge that coach!" Baseball, it's crystal clear. If it goes over the yellow stripe on the outfield wall, it's a homerun; enough said.

No Time Limit 3 of 21 In every sport, when it gets to crunch time, you have two opponents. One is the team you're facing, and the other is the clock. Except for baseball, that is. Every team is equal when the game begins. The home team has 27 outs and the away team has 27 outs. There really is no home field advantage since stadiums very rarely get loud. It's up to you to put the best product on the field that can use your 27 outs wisely. And if you're tied after 27 outs, no biggie; we'll just give you each three more outs to score. Oh, so you're still tied? That's cool, here's three more outs for both of you guys; we're in no rush, just go ahead and play until you guys have the same amount of outs, but one team has more runs. And really, who doesn't like spending more time at the ballpark? Longer Schedule 4 of 21 Ronald Martinez/Getty Images There's nothing more tedious than a Wednesday afternoon during football season. It's almost torture.

And the worst part is there's nothing you can do about it; you're just going to have to tough it out till Sunday. But during baseball season, your favorite team plays almost every day, so all you have to do is tough out the school or workday, then come home to your favorite team. It almost becomes a routine. Convenience 5 of 21 Elsa/Getty Images If you want to attend a football game, you'll likely have to plan your trip years in advance for some teams. It's almost a once in a lifetime occasion. But in baseball, you could wake up and say, "Hey, I've got nothing to do this afternoon. I'm pretty sure the Rangers are in town, why not take the family down to Arlington?" And there's not a better way to bond than a father-son trip to the ballpark. Rivalries 6 of 21 Few rivalries are more heated than Yankees - Red Sox , with two of the biggest powerhouses in the world going head to head. Sure, it may have lost some of its luster over the years, but it still remains a big draw. In football, rivalries are almost always media-created.

Rivarlies like Steelers-Ravens or Redskins-Eagles aren't as big as they seem. And since when was Cowboys vs. anybody a "rivalry" game? Minor Leagues 7 of 21 Christian Petersen/Getty Images There's nothing minor about it. These games are just as competitive as their major league counterparts; just in a cheaper, more relaxed atmosphere. So if you feel like watching a ballgame, but don't want to go through the hassle of a major league game, take a trip down to your local minor league team for a fun-filled, less high-stake game. Equal Opportunity 8 of 21 Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images In a way, baseball is everything America stands for. Everybody has a chance on a baseball field. If you're old, maybe you can run a team like nobody's business. If you're young, maybe you're your favorite team's biggest fan. If you can't field, maybe you can hit. If you can't hit, maybe you can pitch. If you can't pitch, maybe you're the best dang bat-boy baseball's ever seen. Baseball is always making room for all sorts of people; it doesn't hand-pick athletes.

If you're not tall, you'll never make it in basketball. If you're built like a girl, you'll never make it in football. Stats 9 of 21 Donald Miralle/Getty Images Like baseball itself, stats flow together perfectly. There's a stat for every situation, What is your ERA during night games? If you're a switch-hitter, what's your batting average on the road righty? There's literally a never-ending stream of stats. People love them as well, some a little bit too much; some people have been known to devote their lives to finding out things like what was Joe Dimmagio's batting average on 3-1 counts? In football, most of the stats are pointless. Tell me how to calculate quarterback ratings? Didn't think you could. Now tell me how to calculate batting averages, basic math. Personality 10 of 21 J. Meric/Getty Images Baseball features some of the biggest larger-than-life personalities in sports. Manny Ramirez , Barry Bonds, Brian Wilson, Jose Cancesco, Alex Rodriguez , Tim Lincecum; the list goes on and on. In football, all you really know about the player is their name and there number.

Their face is hidden by a facemask. For example, there are guys like Ladanian Tomlinson, who wear a dark visor. You don't get a real emotional connection to someone when you don't even know what they look like. Playoff System 11 of 21 Al Bello/Getty Images There have been talks of expanding playoff teams, which I personally hate, and I'm going to tell you why. In the NFL, making the playoffs is cool and all, but it isn't remembered very long after. Unless you're the Yankees or Red Sox, you might make the playoffs once or twice in a decade. Making the playoffs feels special after a grueling, 162 game season; you really made it. When the Pirates finally reach the playoffs, it'll be a feel good story in Pittsburgh. Percentage of teams making MLB playoffs: roughly 25 percent Percentage of teams making NFL playoffs: roughly 40 percent Playoff Series 12 of 21 Al Bello/Getty Images In football, it's one and done. That has several flaws to it; the biggest being lady luck. If it had been a best two out of three series, do you think the Seahawks could have beaten the Saints again?

In football, the best team does not always win. In baseball, though, the playoff system seperates the boys from the men. You have at least four games to prove yourself worthy of advancing to the next round. If you don't, then you'll be packing up; simple as that. Commercials 13 of 21 In football, there is approximately 11 minutes when the ball is actually in play and something is going on. The other three hours are jam-packed full of...commercials. There are far too many commercials breaks in football, possesion changes, timeouts, challenges, booth reviews, halftime; it completely destroys the flow of the game. Suddenly, commercials every half-inning and a few pitching swaps doesn't sound so bad, does it? All-Star Game 14 of 21 Stephen Dunn/Getty Images The MLB all-star game is not just a game; it is a weekend long event. Between the Homerun Derby, the Futures game ad the real deal all-star game; the MLB actually takes pride in this event. The NFL could care less, They just shove it all the way in Hawaii, Don't bother promoting it at all. And make silly rules to make the game less competitive.

No blitzing, no contact on special teams, no motion shifting, Are you sure this isn't flag football? And since when were fans allowed to call plays? Ballparks 15 of 21 Ballparks in baseball come in all different shapes, colors and sizes. From the ivy at Wrigley Field, to those tacky orange seats at Sun Life stadium, to the Green Monster at Fenway, you'd know exactly what ballpark you were in if you were somehow randomly transported there. Football, on the other hand, is different. The stadiums are almost clones of each other. They are all the exact same dimensions. In baseball, you have all sorts of wacky fence sizes that can significantly help or hurt a team. In football, it's one size only. Boring. Besides the dimensions part, baseball ballparks are far more beautiful and friendly than football stadiums. No Penalty Flags Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images In football, there will always be controversy when it comes to penalties. Thank god baseball doesn't have penalties. This means you can't point fingers if you lose. If you lost, you lost fair and square.

Sure, the umpires might've blown a call or two during the course of the game, but not enough to completely decide the outcome of the game. It gives the game a final feel to it. Baseball Starts in the Spring 17 of 21 Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images Here's a famous quote from a writing: "The game begins in Spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rain comes, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." If that's true, then football begins when everything is dying. "Take Me out to the Ball Game" 18 of 21 Baseball has "Take Me Out to the Ball Game". Football has...well, football has nothing. "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" is a time-honored tradition that is sung at every professional baseball game across the country. It is the most sung song in America except for "Happy Birthday." It really represents everything baseball stands for. Wrigley Field does this tradition better than any other team.

But still, it would be almost a sin to not sing this between the top and bottom half of the seventh inning. Baeball Will Always Be There for Us 19 of 21 Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images Football is headed for a lockout in 2011; baseball isn't. Sure, commisioner Bud Selig may not do everything right, but at least we can rest easy knowing there will be a season next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. In football, nothing is guaranteed nowadays. It sounds corny, but baseball has our back, no matter what. History 20 of 21 Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images Football can't match the illustrious history that baseball brings to the table. The players, the myths, the legends, the Hall of Famers, all larger than life. You have players like Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Joe Dimaggio, Honus Wagner, all of them who don't seem human. Then you got the records, Dimaggio's 56-game hitting streak, the shot heard round the world, Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier. Football can't say they have that.

The Magic 21 of 21 There's something truly magical about baseball. Something that you can't lay a finger on, but it has always been there. When you were young, little league ballgames were what you lived for. You'd be giddy all day in class, just waiting to hear that first pop of the glove as you made your way to the field. You'll root for your team till the day you die. You welcome your team into your home every evening. The team almost becoming another member of the family. Like I said, you can't explain it, but it's there, and that really is what seperates baseball from football. Is Baseball Still the National Pastime? - The New York Times The New York Times The Opinion Pages |Is Baseball Still the National Pastime? Search Is Baseball Still the National Pastime? OCT. 3, 2013 Continue reading the main story To the Editor: Jonathan Mahler, in “ Is the Game Over? ” (Sunday Review, Sept. 29), seems to confuse the status of Major League Baseball with the standing of the game of baseball in American society.

While he correctly observes that professional baseball is enjoying good times even as television ratings fall far behind professional and collegiate football and basketball, he doesn’t mention more important barometers of baseball’s continuing vitality and popularity among the American people. These include the millions of boys and girls who join thousands of youth, scholastic, collegiate and American Legion baseball teams, along with the men and women who play baseball and softball in industrial and semiprofessional urban and rural leagues, and the continuing interest in the history and cultural meaning of baseball, as measured by the sale of baseball books, the popularity of baseball films like “The Natural” and “Field of Dreams,” and the public’s continuing fascination with the origins of the sport. Major League Baseball may indeed rank a poor third to football and basketball in television ratings, but the game remains the national pastime because it resonates more deeply in the country’s soul than any other sport. GEORGE B. KIRSCH Hackensack, N.J., Sept.

29, 2013 The writer is the author of “Baseball and Cricket: The Creation of American Team Sports: 1838-72” and “Baseball in Blue and Gray: The National Pastime During the Civil War.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story To the Editor: Jonathan Mahler’s points about baseball’s decline are valid; much work awaits the new commissioner. But saying baseball is no longer our national pastime ignores important facts: Football teams play once a week, often in cold weather, obviating competing outdoor diversions, yet baseball attracts fans to stadiums daily for six months. Football enjoys free minor leagues (otherwise known as college); baseball subsidizes dozens of professional minor-league teams. People constantly play baseball trivia, not football trivia. True, Madden video games and fantasy football have millions of fans, but baseball has fantasy leagues, too, and baseball cards are far more valuable. Trade card shows showcase retired baseball stars. Most linemen play in obscurity. Baseball drafts from high school, so naturally they’re unknowns. But only baseball’s Hall of Fame elections provoke yearly debates. Indeed, too few African-Americans play baseball, but fewer Hispanic or Asian-Americans are in football.

The World Series can go seven games; the Super Bowl, with two weeks of endless hype, is one win-or-lose event, televised in the homebound winter. Both are great, but baseball still rules! Photo JEFFREY LYONS New York, Oct. 2, 2013 The writer, the movie critic, has co-written four baseball books and has done color commentary for the Boston Red Sox Spanish Radio Network. To the Editor: It seems almost incredible that Jonathan Mahler doesn’t explicitly state the obvious reason baseball is fading from the national discussion: too many games that simply go on too long. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Block Island, R.I., Sept. 29, 2013 To the Editor: Jonathan Mahler, in his astute essay about the growing irrelevance of baseball in America, asserts that football is able to capture the public’s excitement because “it’s louder, faster and more violent ... better in tune with our cultural moment.” I guess that’s precisely why baseball will always be the sport of choice in our home.

Maybe watching runners move around the bases is a bit like watching the face of a clock. But my 7- and 9-year-old sons play Little League, keep up with the stats, and still collect ever-mounting piles of baseball cards. They call me over to watch a game on television when a player runs to first base and starts chatting warmly with the opposing player. They love that moment best of all, and of course when the Mets occasionally manage to win. SHARON G. FORMAN Scarsdale, N.Y., Sept. 29, 2013 To the Editor: Jonathan Mahler’s essay about the decline in baseball’s popularity did not mention the most important factor: the price of tickets. Going to a baseball game, once a family activity, is now unaffordable for the average family. ILENE WINKLER New York, Sept. 30, 2013 A version of this letter appears in print on October 4, 2013, on Page A34 of the New York edition with the headline: Is Baseball Still the National Pastime?.

Today's Paper | Subscribe Debating America's pastime(s) - The New York Times The New York Times Continue reading the main story About one-third of the nation is expected to tune into the Super Bowl, a gargantuan audience that is nothing new for the National Football League. The 17 most-watched programs in TV history have all been Super Bowl games. You'd think that alone would make a persuasive case for football's hold on the American psyche. But the National Football League isn't stopping there. It recently sent out a 29-page white paper making the case that professional football — rather than basketball or baseball — was "America's choice." It's only the latest fusillade in the on-going war between the sports leagues. The NFL's promoters marshaled numbers ranging from its TV ratings ("widest margin ever") to game attendance ("more than 90 percent of capacity") to the not-insignificant bump in CD sales an artist enjoys after performing in the Super Bowl halftime show. One could be forgiven for thinking the NFL was openly coveting the title of "national pastime" — applied to baseball for the last 150 years and presumably coveted by the NBA, as well.

While such muscle-flexing seems rather gauche in a time of recession (especially as the NFL was preparing to lay off more than 10 percent of its staff), the question remains: Which is it? Football, baseball or basketball? Continue reading the main story Let's go to the numbers. The NFL makes what you might call the shock-and-awe case for being the national pastime. Each year, a Harris Interactive survey asks Americans to name their favorite sport. The NFL has won each of the last 43 surveys, often rather handily. Last year, 30 percent of Americans chose pro football as their favorite sport, compared to 15 percent for baseball and just 4 percent for professional basketball. College football claims another 12 percent of hearts and minds (as well as ESPN's, which recently paid $500 million to carry college football's Bowl Championship Series from 2011 to 2014). All told, 42 percent of Americans prefer some form of football.

Advertisement Continue reading the main story The NFL likewise claims the biggest chunk of annual revenue (more than $7 billion in 2007, nearly a billion dollars more than baseball) and, among other things, the most tie-in video games sold; the highest average regular-season network TV ratings among African-Americans; and the most fantasy players. The league goes on to suggest that some 225 million Americans watched an NFL game on TV this season — "nearly 100 million more than the record number of Americans who voted in the 2008 presidential election." This is true, in part, because while you can watch a football game dozens of times a year, you only get to vote once for president and you have to be at least 18. (You could expand the argument by pointing out that attendance at college football games reached nearly 49 million in 2007 compared to 32.8 million for college basketball, according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Attendance at college baseball games is microscopic by comparison.) But plenty of people go to Major League Baseball games, which is why, much like the game's chroniclers, MLB prefers to consider the argument with a wide-angle lens.

Asked why baseball still deserves to be called the national pastime, partisans will cite one figure: 78.5 million. That is the attendance total recorded by Major League Baseball for the 2008 regular season. By comparison, the NFL's regular-season attendance was just over 17 million. Yes, football has a shorter season, but how can you call Major League Baseball less popular if it sells four times as many tickets? And those numbers don't include minor league baseball, which last year reached a record attendance of 43.2 million — its fifth record-setting year in a row. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy But only so much about a sport's popularity can be determined by who watches from a box seat or BarcaLounger. "If you have a national pastime, it doesn't necessarily refer to spectators, it refers to how people pass their time," says Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economist at Smith College. And it's here — with the blacktop theory — that basketball finally asserts its supremacy.

There are 25.9 million regular basketball players in America (including its recently elected president), according to the most recent survey by the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association. Baseball and outdoor soccer rank second and third. Touch football comes in fourth and tackle football ranks sixth, trailing slow-pitch softball. Worldwide, the International Basketball Federation estimates that 450 million people play the game, and, for the 2007-2008 season, the NBA claimed 1.76 billion TV viewers worldwide. The debate over which sport truly ranks as America's pastime is part of a long and rich history of sports propagandizing. The term "national pastime" was first given to baseball in the 1850s, according to John Thorn, the author of "Total Baseball," to connect baseball to the public's health and well-being. "There were propagandists for baseball becoming the American equivalent of cricket, to provide for rugged constitutions and ruddy cheeks," Thorn said. In 1978, NFL Films began marketing the Dallas Cowboys as America's Team, and two decades later, the league has itself become, by its own estimation, America's Choice, just like the A&P house brand.

Advertisement Continue reading the main story To look closely at the arguments also offers clues about what each sport aspires to be. Baseball still observes the touchingly anachronistic notion that one should see a game in person while enjoying a hot dog and belting out "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh-inning stretch. The NFL's marketing — like the rest of the NFL — is about bombast and an abiding nationalistic pride. All of which will be on full display today when the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals battle in the 43rd Super Bowl (whoops, that should be Super Bowl XLIII), with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band as the halftime act. If last year's Super Bowl is a guide, nearly 100 million people are expected to tune in. Never mind the recession; advertisers are paying as much as $3 million for 30-second snatches of time — or $100,000 a second. But perhaps the national pastime argument is best left to the sports leagues to debate. "I don't think the fans give a hoot," says David Neft, the author of encyclopedias on pro football and baseball.

Because, in the end, the only comparative metric fans really care about — whether they're at the Super Bowl, the World Series, or a water polo match — will be what's on the scoreboard. A version of this article appears in print on February 1, 2009, in The International Herald Tribune. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe Ann Coulter - June 25, 2014 - AMERICA'S FAVORITE NATIONAL PASTIME: HATING SOCCER Ann Coulter - June 25, 2014 - AMERICA'S FAVORITE NATIONAL PASTIME: HATING SOCCER AMERICA'S FAVORITE NATIONAL PASTIME: HATING SOCCER June 25, 2014 I've held off on writing about soccer for a decade -- or about the length of the average soccer game -- so as not to offend anyone. But enough is enough. Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay. (1) Individual achievement is not a big factor in soccer. In a real sport, players fumble passes, throw bricks and drop fly balls -- all in front of a crowd.

When baseball players strike out, they're standing alone at the plate. But there's also individual glory in home runs, touchdowns and slam-dunks. In soccer, the blame is dispersed and almost no one scores anyway. There are no heroes, no losers, no accountability, and no child's fragile self-esteem is bruised. There's a reason perpetually alarmed women are called "soccer moms," not "football moms." Do they even have MVPs in soccer? Everyone just runs up and down the field and, every once in a while, a ball accidentally goes in. That's when we're supposed to go wild. I'm already asleep. (2) Liberal moms like soccer because it's a sport in which athletic talent finds so little expression that girls can play with boys. No serious sport is co-ed, even at the kindergarten level. (3) No other "sport" ends in as many scoreless ties as soccer.

This was an actual marquee sign by the freeway in Long Beach, California, about a World Cup game last week: "2nd period, 11 minutes left, score: 0:0." Two hours later, another World Cup game was on the same screen: "1st period, 8 minutes left, score: 0:0." If Michael Jackson had treated his chronic insomnia with a tape of Argentina vs. Brazil instead of Propofol, he'd still be alive, although bored. Even in football, by which I mean football, there are very few scoreless ties -- and it's a lot harder to score when a half-dozen 300-pound bruisers are trying to crush you. (4) The prospect of either personal humiliation or major injury is required to count as a sport. Most sports are sublimated warfare. As Lady Thatcher reportedly said after Germany had beaten England in some major soccer game: Don't worry. After all, twice in this century we beat them at their national game. Baseball and basketball present a constant threat of personal disgrace.

In hockey, there are three or four fights a game -- and it's not a stroll on beach to be on ice with a puck flying around at 100 miles per hour. After a football game, ambulances carry off the wounded. After a soccer game, every player gets a ribbon and a juice box. (5) You can't use your hands in soccer. (Thus eliminating the danger of having to catch a fly ball.) What sets man apart from the lesser beasts, besides a soul, is that we have opposable thumbs. Our hands can hold things. Here's a great idea: Let's create a game where you're not allowed to use them! (6) I resent the force-fed aspect of soccer. The same people trying to push soccer on Americans are the ones demanding that we love HBO's "Girls," light-rail, Beyonce and Hillary Clinton. The number of New York Times articles claiming soccer is "catching on" is exceeded only by the ones pretending women's basketball is fascinating. I note that we don't have to be endlessly told how exciting football is. (7) It's foreign. In fact, that's the precise reason the Times is constantly hectoring Americans to love soccer.

One group of sports fans with whom soccer is not "catching on" at all, is African-Americans. They remain distinctly unimpressed by the fact that the French like it. (8) Soccer is like the metric system, which liberals also adore because it's European. Naturally, the metric system emerged from the French Revolution, during the brief intervals when they weren't committing mass murder by guillotine. Despite being subjected to Chinese-style brainwashing in the public schools to use centimeters and Celsius, ask any American for the temperature, and he'll say something like "70 degrees." Ask how far Boston is from New York City, he'll say it's about 200 miles. Liberals get angry and tell us that the metric system is more "rational" than the measurements everyone understands. This is ridiculous. An inch is the width of a man's thumb, a foot the length of his foot, a yard the length of his belt. That's easy to visualize. How do you visualize 147.2 centimeters? (9) Soccer is not "catching on." Headlines this week proclaimed "Record U.S.

ratings for World Cup," and we had to hear -- again -- about the "growing popularity of soccer in the United States." The USA-Portugal game was the blockbuster match, garnering 18.2 million viewers on ESPN. This beat the second-most watched soccer game ever: The 1999 Women's World Cup final (USA vs. China) on ABC. (In soccer, the women's games are as thrilling as the men's.) Run-of-the-mill, regular-season Sunday Night Football games average more than 20 million viewers; NFL playoff games get 30 to 40 million viewers; and this year's Super Bowl had 111.5 million viewers. Remember when the media tried to foist British soccer star David Beckham and his permanently camera-ready wife on us a few years ago? Their arrival in America was heralded with 24-7 news coverage. That lasted about two days. Ratings tanked. No one cared. If more "Americans" are watching soccer today, it's only because of the demographic switch effected by Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration law. I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer.

One can only hope that, in addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time. COPYRIGHT 2014 ANN COULTER Football Has Taken Over Baseball As The True National Pastime | The Huffington Post Football Has Taken Over Baseball As The True National Pastime 04/16/2015 11:35 am ET | Updated Apr 16, 2015 140 Lucy McCalmont Sports Editor Jeffrey Phelps via Getty Images Certain things in sports may never be settled: Brady vs. Manning, did Babe Ruth actually call the shot? However, others are just known and accepted to be true, particularly that baseball is the national pastime. Or is it? Turns out, a new poll from the good people of Bloomberg Politics may throw everything we hold dear and true about baseball into question. Sixty-seven percent of respondents said that football is America's pastime , while only 28 percent said baseball is. However, the numbers aren't all that surprising, Bloomberg's Will Leitch writes.

In fact, despite headlines of concussions and domestic abuse surrounding football and steroid use still plaguing baseball, it's actually media that is the biggest factor to baseball's dwindling grasp on Americans' hearts, and more importantly, their interest. It has been a long, long time since baseball was truly America’s pastime, and it has nothing to do with anything baseball has done wrong. It has been since … television. ...The NFL is terrific to watch on television in a way baseball isn’t and never was, and we are a nation of television watchers. The minute people realized how easy football was to follow on television -- even if it really tells you very little of what’s actually going on -- was the minute baseball stopped being America’s pastime. Leitch says those figures might actually serve as a wake-up call for baseball, which he (not incorrectly) notes has been stuck in the past and resisting to adapt to a contemporary, modern audience and their consumption habits. One big criticism (by some) has been the length of play, which (some) say is slow and dull.

To combat this "snoozefest," the league implemented new rules ahead of the 2015 season , which followed the creation of -- wait for it -- the Pace of Game Committee. Let's just throw in some sharks hopping through rings of fire while we're at it, no? Now that screams America to me. Hey! Over here! A baseball game! (Source: Getty) Related on HuffPost: Baseball as a National Pastime Baseball as a National Pastime Maryland State Archives e-mail: archives@mdsa.net Overview Baseball as we know it today began as a folk game in many civilizations throughout the world, but can be traced back most closely to England. Several alternate versions were played in Colonial America, including stoolball, cricket, and other "bat and ball" games. References to "baseball" can be traced back to 1791, but modern day baseball first came to light, according to many, when Abner Doubleday wrote the rules for the game in 1939 in Cooperstown, New York. Another version of the rules, this time written by Alexander Cartright in 1845, came about for the first official baseball team, the New York Knickerbockers.

By 1857, adult baseball clubs came together and created the National Association of Base Ball Players, forming the first official Baseball League. The National League of American Baseball Players would evolve to the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs in 1875. Until the 1880s, African American, "Indian", Southern and Central Americans, played in these baseball clubs, including players Fleet and Welday Walker. However, these players would be demoted out of the Major Leagues in the 1880s, and Major League Baseball would remain a "White Only" sport until 1947 with the signing of Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Players were amateur players until the formation of the Cincinatti Red Stockings in 1869. By 1880, the idea of playing baseball as a career became the norm in Major League Baseball. In addition to the National League, the minor Western League evolved into the American League, and joined with the National League to begin the World Series in 1903.

The 1920s brought to light many of the Baseball legends such as Cy Young, Ty Cobb, and Baltimore's own Babe Ruth, known for their strong hitting skills in a time where hitting homeruns was not as common as it is tody. the 1920s also produced the Negro Leauges, created by Rube Foster. Scandals also ran through the sport of baseball, including accusations of throwing games. Proof that baseball had become a national pastime was clearly visible with the building of several of the great ballparks, including Wrigley Field in Chicago and Fenway Park in Boston during this time. In the 1930s, baseball playing on all levels continued to expand. In 1938, the beginnings of Little League comes together in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. By 1960 Little League Baseball would garner over 27,000 teams from the US, Canada, Mexico, and Europe, and its World Series would be televised nationally on ABC.

In Major League Baseball, the 1930s brought the beginning of the annual "All Star" game in 1933, and in 1936, the National Baseball Hall Of Fame inducted the first five players: Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner. World War II devastated baseball, as many of its stars also became immortalized as national heroes as they fought on the front lines for their country rather than in a baseball field. Such baseball stars turned war heroes include Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. In light of many of the Major League baseball players fighing for the US, women stepped up to the plate, and in 1946, the All American Girls Professional Baseball League began play. Women continued to play professional baseball until 1954 when the league was disbanded. Throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Major League Baseball expanded from being a New England dominated game to a Coast to Coast organization, trading teams and creating expansion teams to California, Seattle, Kansas City, and Texas, just to name a few. In this time, the St.

Louis Browns came to Baltimore and became the Baltimore Orioles. Washington, DC, also switched teams, sending the first Washington Senators to Minnesota in 1961 and creating a new expansion team with the same name. Washington would only keep the second Washington Senators until 1972, when they moved to become the Texas Rangers. The current move by the Montreal Expos to Washington in 2005 is the first move of a professional team since the Senators left for Texas. Baseball players fought and struck for their rights in two devastating strikes in 1981 and 1994, both of which deterred many spectators from the game. The strike in 1981 caused 713 Major League games to be cancelled while players and owners argued over the rights of players to be free agents. in 1994, players struck most of the season, forcing the cancellation of the World Series, the only time it has been cancelled in its history. Players struck over salary caps in their contracts.

However horrible the strikes, baseball and Americans' love of the game helped it to recover, and throughout the 1980s, professional baseball hit several highs, including the breaking of Ty Cobb's record by Pete Rose in 1986 who achieved a total of 4,256 hits in his career. Major League baseball took longer to recover after the 1994 strike, having lost many of its fanbase when cancelling the World Series. Baseball earned its place in Americans' hearts when Baltimore's Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig's record for consecutively played games. Ripken broke the 2,130 game record in September of 1995, a memory that lives in the hearts of not only Baltimorians, but baseball fans around the country. By 1995, Little League and children's baseball had also grown tremendously. Several of the modern Major League Baseball Players were graduates of the Little League program, including Jason Varitek, Marc Pisciotta, Dan Wilson and Derek Bell. Other notable celebrities, including Kareem Abdul-Jabar, Tom Selleck, George Will, and President George W. Bush, also graduated from Little League Baseball.

Little League also expanded to include a girls league, Big, Junior, Senior, and Challenged Leagues to accommodate children who had grown out of Little League, as well as mentally and physically handicapped children. Dwight D. Eisenhower, and later John F. Kennedy, pronounced a "National Little League Week" in June and by 1964, Little League earned a Federal Charter from the US Congress. Little League International hosts teams and leagues from over 100 countries by 2000. Baseball as a sport is more widely organized in the US than any other game, and in numbers of ticket buyers per year, baseball is also the most widely spectated sport, not including television audiences. Whether truly an American invention by Abner Doubleday, or an evolution from other stick and ball games from England and other civilizations, Baseball is truly an American sport, and our national pastime. National History Standards Materials compiled in this document can be used by educators to fulfill the following National History Standards for Grades K-4: STANDARD 2: The history of students’ own local community and how communities in North America varied long ago. Standard 2A: The student understands the history of his or her local community.

K-4: Identify historical figures in the local community and explain their contributions and significance. [Assess the importance of the individual in history] Materials compiled in this document can be used by educators to fulfill the following National History Standards for Grades 5-12: Era 7: The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930) Standard 3: How the United States changed from the end of World War I to the eve of the Great Depression Standard 3C: The student understands how new cultural movements reflected and changed American society. 5-12: Assess how increased leisure time promoted the growth of professional sports, amusement parks, and national parks. [Analyze cause-and-effect relationships]. Primary Resources Secondary Resources Henderson, Robert. Bat, Ball, and Bishop: The Origin of Ball Games. Champaign-Urbana; University of Illinois Press, 2001. Sullivan, Neil J. " Baseball and Race: The Limits of Competition ." The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 83, No. 3. (Summer, 1998), pp. 168-177. Tygiel, Jules. Past Time: Baseball as History.

London; Oxford University Press, 2001. Ritter, Lawrence. The Glory of Their Times : The Story of Baseball Told By the Men Who Played It. San Franscisco: Perennial Currents, 1992. Zingg, Paul J. " Diamond in the Rough: Baseball and the Study of American Sports History ." The History Teacher Vol. 19, No. 3. (May, 1986), pp. 385-403. Password Access to Journal Articles Some journal articles linked to this site require password access due to copyright and other restrictions. Teachers participating in the Teaching American History in Maryland program with a valid University of Maryland (UMBC) Library card can access these materials through ResearchPort . Associated Heritage and Preservation Organizations (888) 848-BIRD Copyright and Other Restrictions Access to materials linked within these document packets is intended for educational and research purposes. The written permission of the copyright owners and/or holders of other rights (such as publicity and privacy rights) is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions.

The responsibility for making an independent legal assessment and independently securing any necessary rights rests with persons desiring to use particular items in the context of the intended use. Password Access to Materials The use of any user name and password to access materials on this web site constitutes an agreement by the user to abide by any and all copyright restrictions and is an acknowledgement that these materials will be used for personal and educational use only. In most instances, the username aaco and password aaco# will work. Contact ref@mdsa.net if you have any questions or have difficulty accessing files. Credits Teaching American History in Maryland is a collaborative partnership of the Maryland State Archives and the Center for History Education (CHE), University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), and the following sponsoring school systems: Anne Arundel County Public Schools, Baltimore City Public School System, Baltimore County Public Schools, and Howard County Public Schools. Other program partners include the Martha Ross Center for Oral History, Maryland Historical Society, State Library Resource Center/Enoch Pratt Free Library, with assistance from the National Archives and Records Administration and the Library of Congress. The program is funded through grants from the U.S. Department of Education. This document packet was researched and developed by Samantha Howe.

An Archives of Maryland Online Publication © Copyright, Maryland State Archives, November 01, 2005 Play Ball! Baseball is America's 'National Pastime' Play Ball! Baseball is America's 'National Pastime' May 05, 2014 Copy and paste the embed code below. The code has been copied to your clipboard. MP3 Pop-out player From VOA Learning English, welcome to This Is America. I'm Steve Ember. Baseball is a sport that began in the eastern United States in the 1800s. It became known as the "national pastime," a game that millions of people continue to enjoy each spring and summer. Major league baseball recently opened its new season. So this is a good time to explore the influence of baseball on popular culture, including music and poetry. Many songs and poems have been written about baseball, and today, Shirley Griffith and I will tell you about some of them. Baseball expert Warner Fusselle writes that there are probably more than 1,000 songs about baseball. The most popular is "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." It was written in 1908 by Jack Norworth.

He wrote it after seeing a sign about baseball in an underground train in New York City. His friend, Albert Von Tilzer, put the words to music. Mr. Norworth reportedly had never seen a major league baseball game. He did not see one until 33 years after he wrote the song. Seventh Inning – Time for Stretching and Singing! People still sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during baseball games. [Seventh inning stretch at a Chicago Cubs game] Near the end of the game, people become tired of sitting on the hard seats. So, during a special time in the game, everyone stands up and stretches their arms and legs. This tradition is called "the seventh inning stretch." Everyone sings a song together. Most often, it is "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." Here, it is sung by the National Pastime Orchestra and singers. Nelly Kelly loved baseball games, Knew the players, knew all their names, You could see her there ev'ry day, Shout "Hurray," when they'd play.

Her boy friend by the name of Joe Said, "To Coney Isle, dear, let's go," Then Nelly started to fret and pout, And to him I heard her shout. "Take me out to the ball game, Take me out with the crowd. Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack, I don't care if I never get back, Let me root, root, root for the home team, If they don't win it's a shame. For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out, At the old ball game." Baseball expert Richard Miller writes that many songs about other subjects -- such as love -- use words and expressions from baseball. For example, in a song written in 1912, a woman tells her boy friend that she will not like him unless he is a good baseball player. The song is called "If You Can't Make a Hit in a Ball Game, You Can't Make a Hit with Me." In 1943, George Moriarty wrote a song designed to support American forces fighting in World War II. Mister Moriarty was a former baseball player and manager for the Detroit Tigers team.

His song is called "You're Gonna Win That Ball Game, Uncle Sam." It is performed here by the National Pastime Orchestra and singers. Many songs have been written about America's baseball teams. These include the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Chicago Cubs. Other songs have been written about famous baseball players: Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson and Joe DiMaggio. Hello Joe, whatta you know? We need a hit so here I go. Ball one (Yea!) Strike two (Kill that umpire!) A case of Wheaties Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio Gets His Own Song Joe DiMaggio thanks his fans Some people think Joe DiMaggio was the greatest player in the history of baseball. He hit safely in a record 56 games in a row for the New York Yankees in 1941. This record never has been broken. That same year, Les Brown and his band recorded the song "Joltin' Joe DiMaggio." Betty Bonney sings about the way DiMaggio hit the ball very, very hard -- how he "jolted" it.

He started baseball's famous streak That's got us all aglow He's just a man and not a freak, Joltin' Joe DiMaggio. We want you on our side He tied the mark at forty-four July the 1st you know Since then he's hit a good twelve more Joltin' Joe DiMaggio We want you on our side From coast to coast that's all you'll hear Of Joe the one man show He's glorified the horsehide sphere Joltin' Joe DiMaggio Joe, Joe DiMaggio We want you on our side In 1955, a popular musical play about baseball opened on Broadway in New York. It was called "Damn Yankees." It was about a middle-aged man who gets a chance to play baseball for his team, the Washington Senators. He plays against the best team in baseball, the New York Yankees. The Senators are not a very good team. Their manager wants them to play better. He urges them to play with all the feeling that is in their hearts.

Here the cast of "Damn Yankees" sings "You Gotta Have Heart." You've gotta have heart All you really need is heart When the odds are sayin' you'll never win That's when the grin should start You've gotta have hope Mustn't sit around and mope Nothin's half as bad as it may appear Wait'll next year and hope When your luck is battin' zero Get your chin up off the floor Mister you can be a hero You can open any door, there's nothin' to it but to do it You've gotta have heart Baseball Mighty Casey has a Bad Day at the Ball Park In addition to the many songs written about baseball, there is a famous poem about the game, too. It is called "Casey at the Bat." A young man named Ernest Thayer wrote the poem in 1888. It was published in the San Francisco Examiner newspaper. The poem still is popular today. "Casey at the Bat" is about a baseball team from a town called Mudville. The team is losing an important game. The game is almost over. Mudville is depending on its best player, Casey, to win the game.

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day; The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play. And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same, A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game. A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast; They thought if only Casey could but get a whack at that- We’d put up even money now with Casey at the bat. To the surprise of the crowd, two players hit the ball well. They reach second and third base. They are ready to score. Then it is Casey's turn at bat. He can win the game if he hits the ball hard enough so that he and the other players can cross home plate. That will give their team more points than their opponent. There was an ease in Casey’s manner as he stepped into his place; There was pride in Casey’s bearing and a smile on Casey’s face. And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat, No stranger in the crowd could doubt ‘twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt; Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt. Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip, Defiance gleamed in Casey’s eye, a sneer curled Casey’s lip. The opposing pitcher throws the ball. But Casey does not try to hit it. The pitcher throws the ball again. Again, Casey does not try to hit it. There are now two strikes against him. One more strike and he will be out. The game will be over. Will Casey finally hit the ball? Will he win the game? The crowd is sure he will. The sneer is gone from Casey’s lip, his teeth are clinched in hate; He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate. And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go, And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow. Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright; The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light, And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout; But there is no joy in Mudville – mighty Casey has struck out.

[Dave Frishberg sings] Van Lingle Mungo Van Lingle Mungo Brooklyn Dodger's pitcher in action, March 7, 1939. (AP Photo) Dave Frishberg is a song writer and jazz pianist. And he loves baseball. In fact, he wrote a song in which the words are nothing but the names of famous and, perhaps, some not-so-famous baseball players. “Van Lingle Mungo” is the name of the song. Augie Bergamo, Sigmund Jakucki, Big Johnny Mize and Barney McCosky Hal Trosky, Augie Galan, and PinkyMay Stan Hack and Frenchie Bordagaray Phil Cavarretta, George McQuinn Howard Pollet and Early Wynn Roy Campanella, Van Lingle Mungo Our program was written by Shelley Gollust. Jim Tedder read portions of the poem “Casey at the Bat.” I'm Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another This is America from VOA Learning English.

Big Johnny Mize and Barney McCosky Hal Trosky, John Antonelli, Ferris Fain Frankie Crosetti, Johnny Sain Harry Brecheen and Lou Boudreau Frankie Gusteen and Claude Passeau Eddie Basinski, Ernie Lombardi

Question: What is America's "national pastime"?
Answer: Baseball