The View From The Top

I have flown to Virginia a few times lately for work. Some great scenery, some disappointing cloudy days, lots of good time for thoughts, not enough time to collect them. One thing that is interesting to note is how much of our landscape is occupied by fields for athletics. All manner can be found, but primarily football, soccer, and baseball. One thing is clear, though: baseball is king.

Prior to making these flights, I would have hypothesized our nation's societal passion from a community investment standpoint would be soccer for our youth, with football holding reign for adult entertainment. Soccer draws in bazillions of youth whose parents want them to play a sport that requires virtually no training to get started, hardly anybody gets their self-esteem ruffled; while fields require grass, a few pipes, and not much seating because nobody watches the games. Football probably draws the biggest revenues and biggest crowds for its less frequent games, but not everybody can play, and few can play for long or beyond a certain age. Basketball is ubiquitous, as every city park, suburban driveway, and barn have a hoop hanging. But for number of sanctioned playing fields, where communities show where their hearts lie by slapping down funds, nothing comes close to baseball fields. Of course, from thousands of feet one cannot differentiate between baseball and softball fields, but since they are just gender-specific cousins of the same sport, I'm grouping them together. It is clear, as one surveys our countryside that for all our talk of other endeavors, from team-based battle simulators like football and basketball to the more recent, individual-is-king interlopers such as skate parks, that the position of baseball as our nation's pastime remains concrete.

Let's hope that some of baseball's virtues that develop patience, decisive-almost-reflexive response, and a respect for the archaic (oh, those rules are more perplexing than the English language!) can continue to develop our youth. It is a blessing in a society where our activities are timed to the nearest minute a game thrives that only acknowledges the number of 'outs', not the clock.