Baseball is the best of all sports. It’s great because it’s timeless — it exists in a space beyond time. Unlike other major sports, baseball requires no clock. It’s a ballet of set pieces — at-bats, walks, strikes, balls — and burst of motion. The grace of a swing, the artistry of a double play — all of these don’t run to the ceaseless demands of a clock.
It’s great because it’s a balance between individual achievement and team play. We know the names of the individual greats, but it requires a team of great individuals to win the World Series. Baseball is about the three-run home run, but it’s also about whether your fifth-place hitter can lay down a bunt to move the runner into scoring position.
It’s great because the tension of a face-off without violence can be incredible. A flamethrowing pitcher facing down a slugger with the game on the line; the junkballing reliever trying to struggle out of a bases loaded jam with a one-run lead. Baseball is like life: placidity punctuated by stress.
Baseball is great because it is classic — because we can measure the numerical achievements of past players against current players, speculate about whether Babe Ruth would have been able to compete in today’s game, discuss endlessly with friends and parents and children who the best centerfielder of all time was (for the record, Ty Cobb).
Baseball is great, too, because baseball’s history is tied to the social history of the United States. Babe Ruth goes hand in hand with the roaring 1920s; Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams take us back to the second world war; and of course, Jackie Robinson reminds us of the goodness of human beings and the courage of heroes.
But baseball is under fire — largely for political reasons. Michael Powell of the Globe and Mail says that baseball is simply too white, despite the fact that as of 2017, 32 per cent of players were Latino, and 43 per cent weren’t white. There has been a significant decline in the black population of Major League Baseball, but it’s difficult to attribute that to racism.