Take me out to the ballgame

Baseball. The mere word, if spoken correctly, can send shivers up the spine of some people. When I hear the word, I hear the crack of a bat hitting a ball. I smell the leather of my glove and the oil I put on it during the off-season to loosen it up. I can feel the warm sun beating down on my neck and the dust kicked up off the field.\nThis is baseball, a purely American cultural institution. It wasn't borrowed from another country, and it's not an improved-upon import like spaghetti or some other kind of food.\nAccording to legend, General Abner Doubleday invented the game as a student in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1839. A veteran of the Mexican War and a graduate of West Point, General Doubleday is perhaps best known for firing the first Union shot at Fort Sumter. Later on, his leadership was crucial in the Union victory at Gettysburg.\nDoubleday supposedly came up with the layout of a baseball field, names for the nine different positions and basic rules for the game. This explains why baseball chose Cooperstown as the site for its Hall of Fame.\nIsn't that a great story? American hero fights for his country, defends the Union and invents the national pastime.\nUnfortunately, that's all bogus. Doubleday kept 67 diaries throughout his life, but none of them ever mention baseball. There's not even any evidence that General Doubleday ever visited Cooperstown.\nThe more likely truth is that baseball evolved over time from various English games. \nSo maybe baseball isn't completely American, but it's pretty darn close. Historians and baseball zealots (I think I'm in the latter) often wonder whether baseball reflects America, or whether baseball actually helps change America. Either way, it can play an integral part in our culture.\nThe great thing about baseball is its ability to manifest itself anywhere: backyards, million-dollar stadiums, Little League parks and even the White House lawn.\nI love going to my brother's Little League games. The competition and actual game is loads of fun, but I also enjoy the tremendous sense of community. I know all sorts of interesting tidbits about the players, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and siblings of everyone at the game. This could happen at any youth sport, you say? Not so. Baseball is different. Baseball carries a different atmosphere, a different aura. I can say this with experience, having played in and watched numerous different youth sports games. Baseball stands alone.\nAs you watch the World Series this week, enjoy the competition and battle. But don't forget everything else that it stands for. As James Earl Jones' character says in "Field Of Dreams": "The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again"