Why American Kids (and adults) Need Baseball
Because we need to relearn patience. We are so obsessed with outcomes, with highlights and instant gratification that some of my high school students cannot imagine how I could love a sport that demands waiting, preparing, thinking through every scenario every single pitch, and waiting for your turn in line no matter how great you are. Anti-baseball people just cannot see the beauty of the about-to-happen, feel the transcendental power of suspense, follow the rhythm of the in-between.
Baseball challenges our minds. It’s a puzzle, an open book, the next line of a poem that hasn’t quite been finished. It’s cliche to say that baseball is poetry. It also demeans baseball. It assumes that words can adequately capture actions.
Our kids need baseball because it connects them to the past. To know baseball history, is to know American history. The good, the bad, and the unbelievable. For a child to read books about baseball history is to open their eyes to a mythical world that rivals Middle Earth.
