The National Pastime

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again."

-James Earl Jones as Terrance Mann in Field of Dreams

There is no debate when it comes to the most popular sport in this country. It's football.

Nobody can, or would, try to argue this.

I take no issue with this fact. I, too, like football. What I do take issue with, however, is when people suggest that football is now the National Pastime.

Baseball is, and always will be, the National Pastime. This will never change.

Baseball is about the history. The numbers. Yes, some of those numbers have been tainted in the "Steroid Era," but every fan remembers the truly important figures. 755. 61. .406. 56. These numbers really mean something. Football cannot say the same.

Nobody remembers the statistics in football. Nobody remembers them because football isn't about history. Football is about the biggest, strongest, fastest guys making the biggest, strongest, loudest tackles.

People watch football completely for a source of entertainment. People watch baseball for a sense of history.

Take the Super Bowl for example. It is an event. It is a show. Afterwards people talk about the biggest plays, the hardest hits, and the commercials. Nobody tries to put the game in historical perspective, because nobody cares about the historical perspective.

Baseball is different. The World Series is about history. It's about Gibson's home run, Larsen's perfect game, and Morris's 10 inning shutout. People want to know how each World Series stacks up against the rest.

We've been missing this the last few years because of lackluster fall classics, but even so, fans want to know how each series compares to those of the past. The "Slip-N-Slide" series in Philadelphia may be low on the historical totem, but we still wonder where it ranks in the great scheme of fall classics.

The reasnoing is simple: baseball means more, and on a greater level, than football.

Baseball is built on childhood dreams. Its about our heroes making us smile. It's about playing Little League and dreaming of the big leagues. It's about growing up and watching old stars fade and new ones burst through.

There is an aura surrounding the sport that football will never have.
Simply put baseball grows with us.

Football lives from year to year. Baseball is one long cohesive story. Every season a new chapter. Some better then others; but each with an undeniable link to the whole narrative. Where football starts completely over each year, baseball continues on.

While football will continue to wow us with its yearly theatrics and showmanship, baseball will continue to amaze us with its awe-inspiring subtleties. It will always be there to link us to our past, and allow us to gaze into our future.

It will always be there to "remind of us all that was once good and it could be again."

-Juice