Baseball: America's Pastime?

How many times have you heard the phrase Baseball America's pastime? I know growing up it's always what I heard it called. Question is, is it actually still America's pastime? I have a feeling as I keep growing older and my non born yet kids come along, that it won't be called America's pastime anymore. Why you say? Well the amount of US born players get's lower and lower each year. Will it soon be refereed to as Baseball: The World's pastime?

Growing up and watching baseball in the 90's it was still mainly America's pastime. The Pirates were still good and had my favorite love him or hate him player Barry Bonds. Issues that were going on in baseball were about mainly about baseball. Like the 1994 player strike. Owners and players could not come up with a mutual deal mainly in regards to a salary cap. Fan's got fed up with all of this and attendance dropped 20%. What the game needed was some players to make the game fun and exciting. Give the fan's a reason to go to the games knowing that at any moment they could see history, history of America's pastime.

Then came Cal and the Chase in 1995. Fans started paying attention to America's pastime when Cal Ripken Jr who played for the Baltimore Orioles as their SS and third baseman got closer and closer to Lou Gehrig's consecutive games played record. This was a record that many people including myself thought was untouchable. There was NO WAY anyone could play that many games again. On September 6th 1995 Cal officially set the record. He kept playing until 1997 when he finally missed a game. The record he set and obviously still stands is 2,632 games. A record that I say again will never be broken. Will it? Maybe.

While Cal's impressive record helped start to bring America's pastime back in the spotlight and started to get fan's back in the seats it wasn't quite enough. But in the summer of 1998 a chase for another record helped save the America's pastime. Two Goliath's Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire took the spotlight and had any sports fan in the nation glued to a TV or searching for tickets to catch a game live night in and night out while they chased to break the home run record. This race has only been seen once before in baseball. In 1961 Rodger Maris and Mickey Mantle battled it out for the Major League record chasing Babe Ruth.

The chase for the home run record didn't start off as a contest. As May rolled upon us McGwire had 24 home run's already and Sosa only had 9. But June was a different story. One of if not the greatest home run hitting month of all time got Sosa right back into the race as he hit 20 homer's that June. The battled night in and night out filling the stands with people, making headlines in every paper and news channel. It was an exciting time for baseball. On September 8th McGwire playing the Cubs at home in Busch Stadium hit number 62. It was a pretty amazing night, a night that any sports fan watching it live or on TV will never forget. McGwire went on to hit 70 that year to hold the record and Sosa ended up with 66 and the NL MVP. Without this chase myself and many people feel that baseball would not be the game it is today. Was this the start though of the shift of America's pastime to what we have now? With McGwire the California kid slugging it out with Sosa the Dominican Republic kid?

Opening day 2011 almost 30% of the players in all of Major League baseball were born outside the United States. Don't get me wrong I have no problem with players from other countries playing in the MLB obviously, it's not about that. It is great for the game to have the diversity of cultures following the game and playing the game. My point is that this game is getting so diverse that I feel it is no longer just America's Pastime. It is becoming the World's pastime.

Take for instance some of the top ranked players coming into the 2012 season.


Albert Pujols- DR
Miguel Cabrera- Venezuela
Jose Bautista- DR
Robinson Cano- DR
Joey Votto- Canada
Hanley Ramirez- DR
Jose Reyes- DR
David Ortiz-DR
Carlos Gonzalez-Venezuela
Elvis Andrus- Venezuela

A lot of big name players are helping the game of baseball strive. So let's see what becomes of the game but I feel down the road a clever marketing person will come up with a new slogan.

Baseball: ?????? Pastime


Any feedback or comments are greatly appreciated. Email me at 30mclear44@gmail.com or leave a comment below and I will add them into the post.