Baseball

The Root of All Evil

Throughout the existence of America, we the people have experienced many different types of sports while being a fan. The people that play sports are those whose job is to entertain the fans. In the history of American sports, baseball has been the oldest and most distinguished sport. It also has been one that was soiled from greed and corruption. Baseball started out as a form of entertainment for the fans while allowing players to play for the love of the game. Over time, baseball became a business that was profitable for the owners of the baseball team and also for the players. Money has changed the game of baseball to the point where it is very different from its inception.

Baseball is a game that is very distinguishable and different from the other sports such as basketball, soccer, football, and hockey. It is the only sport that has no time limit and where the games length is nine innings. The game officially ends when one team has more runs scored than the other team. If the score remains tied through nine innings, extra innings are used to determine the winner. Until someone wins, the game will progress until that happens. "Baseball, the only true timeless sport among the major league of football, basketball, and hockey (the clock never ticks on the diamond), has been with us since the turn of the century. As a result, this peculiar journey has produced more legend and lore, miracle and myth, than any other athletic pursuit" (Garver 8). Basketball is timed by four quarters of 12 minutes each. Football is time by four quarters of 15 minutes each. Hockey is timed by three periods of 20 minutes each. Soccer is timed by two halves of forty-five minutes each.

Baseball is also the game that is considered the hardest to play and easiest to fail but also the easiest to be considered successful. This quote by Ted Williams has an underlying meaning where failure has different meanings for different sports. While in basketball and football three out of every ten is considered failure, three out of every ten in baseball is considered successful and excellent. "Hitting a baseball Ð'- I've said it a thousand times Ð'- is the single most difficult thing to do in sport. That requires a greater finesse to go with physical strength, that has as many variables and as few constants, and that carries with it the continuing frustration of knowing that even if you are a .300 hitter Ð'- which is a rare item these days Ð'- you are going to fail at your job seven out of ten times? If Joe Montana or Dan Marino completed three of every ten passes, the attempted, they would be ex-professional quarterbacks. If Larry Bird or Magic Johnson made three of every ten shots they took, their coaches would take the basketball from them" (Williams and Underwood 7). Another quote by Greg Maddux sums up failure best that baseball players often experience, "Failure is the best teacher in the world; you get to learn from what happens to you Ð'- both good and bad Ð'- in a real-live situation" (Mazzone and Rosenthal 54).

Baseball was believed to be created by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839 where he update the game from England called "Rounders" (Honig 1). "Part of the "evidence" was a "circumstantial statement by a reputable gentlemen, according to which the first known diagram of the diamond, indicating positions for the players were drawn by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839"" (Honig 2). The diamond-shaped field consists of four bases with one base at each right angle. The number of players that were allowed on the field for the defensive team was nine. The people on the defensive team were called fielders as they all had different names. The nine fielders were called the pitcher, catcher, first basemen, second basemen, third basemen, shortstop, left fielder, center fielder, and the right fielder. The number of offensive players that were allowed on the field varied from one to four depending on the situation. The people on the offensive team were called the hitter and there were different names for the base runners. The base runners consisted of three people as one was called the first base runner, another would be called the second base runner, and the last would be called the third base runner depending on what base was occupied.

To ensure that baseball was first created in America, Albert Spalding and a panel of seven distinguished gentlemen investigated to determine the origins of baseball (Garber 9). These seven men who made up the Mills Commission included "A.G Mills, a former president of the National League; Arthur P. Gorman, a former United States senator from Maryland; and Morgan G. Bulkeley, a former governor of Connecticut and one-time National League President. These estimated gentlemen and their colleagues sifted through the records and came to the following conclusions: That baseball had its origins in the United States" (Honig 2). So with this decision it took sixty-eight years to finally label Abner Doubleday the founder and creator of baseball (Garber 10).

Abner Doubleday made the rules of baseball very complex and easy to understand. A batter's main goal was to hit a thrown ball and then run to a pole if the ball was put into play (Honig 3). With the ball in play in order to get the hitter out the fielder would have to plug him, hit the hitter or runner with the ball (Honig 3). Then Alexander Cartwright came along and modified the rules to his liking. "The historic game was played under rules newly formulated by Cartwright and it was under these rules that baseball began assuming recognizable shape. There were nine-man teams, plugging has been eliminated, the bases were flat, and most significant of all, a diamond-shaped infield was laid out with the bases ninety feet apart. Ninety feet was the point where a runner and throw would both arrive with the greatest degree of simultaneity, with the throw usually beating the runner by a split second" (Honig 3). With these newly incorporated rules, on June 19, 1846, the first organized game of baseball took place on the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey between the Knickerbockers and the New York Nine (Honig 3). The result of the game was a victory for the New York Nine of 23-1 (Honig 3).

"In retrospect, baseball's quick acceptance was a phenomenon. Those who even today wonder about the mystique of baseball might look back to the 1860s and see it spreading, informally and irresistibly, across the land, something so indigenously American in appeal it was almost as if the nation had been waiting for its arrival, like some marvelous gift to be cherished and enjoyed" (Honig 3). The spread of baseball