On May 4, 1869, the Cincinnati Redstockings defeated the Great Western Base Ball Club, 45-9. It was the Redstockings’ first game as an all-professional team. They went on to a perfect season in 1869, going 57-0. Baseball was America’s game, and the Redstockings, for a brief time, were America’s team.
Professional baseball clubs would become the norm, with a history stretching from the opening months of President Ulysses S. Grant’s first term through the creation of the National and American leagues to today’s Major League Baseball.
Other sports have surpassed it in popularity in the 20th and 21st centuries, but baseball remains “America’s game” in the most important sense. Firstly, it remains the sport most tied to our broader history. Its origins come from older base- and ball-focused games dating back to colonial times. Soldiers in the Civil War played baseball between battles. The sport spread to the West, with professional teams following it in the 20th century.
Baseball played a part in major social and political movements as well. One such movement concerns the struggle for racial equality. Segregation established a color line in the sport, giving us the amazing legacy of the Negro Leagues but depriving all of the excellence that an integrated professional sport would have yielded. Jackie Robinson breaking that color line in 1947 was the picture of heroism, a man who suffered much evil in pursuit of a cause whose justice entailed much more than playing a game.
Baseball also played a role in the economic conflicts regarding capital and labor. Team owners, for a long time, dominated players with the reserve clause. Then, men such as Curt Flood agitated for change, pushing for greater player say not only with regard to trades but also to pay and all elements of how the game is played.
Secondly, baseball at its best reflects America at its best. Our history certainly shows this truth. Integrating baseball was a public, powerful argument for the country to live out its commitment to human equality. Baseball, at its best, is innovative, whether in particular changes to rules or the inclusion of new technology. And baseball is familial. I root for the same team as my great-grandfather. I am doing my best for my own children to be the fifth generation of Cincinnati Reds fans.
But baseball also showcases the enduring virtues, and even at times the lingering vices, of our republican form of government. Baseball exemplifies America’s dedication both to individual achievement and to the common good. Players have the chance for their own glory in a home run or a great catch, but they also might be called on to lay down a sacrifice bunt to improve the team’s chances of winning.
Baseball has umpires, often the source of united frustration. But as another political scientist has observed, umpires display to us something similar to our Constitution’s judicial power. Umpires show the need not just for rules but for an impartial judge to apply those rules to real-life situations.
America’s game displays a democratic element as well. A preset batting order rigidly declares who will be at the plate at what point in the game. Basketball might be able to lean on one player to score. Football now is overwhelmingly dependent on quarterbacks. But with the batting order in baseball, any of the nine might have to play the hero or suffer the humiliation of failure. They have an equal place in the lineup and, thus, equal potential to be called upon in the game’s crucial moments.
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Finally, baseball showcases America’s love of excellence. Our republic believes in human equality. Yet, it does not understand that equality to deny the place of merit. Instead, equality should permit all to achieve to the best of their distinct abilities. Baseball has plenty of luck. But it ultimately depends on the combination of grit and greatness. At its best, it rewards those who are excellent at what they do. America is at its best when it also recognizes virtue, intellectual and moral, and seeks such virtue to be a groundwork for our experiment in self-government.
Watch some baseball today. Do so because of the history. Do so because of its connection to our republican values. And do so because baseball, still, is not just a great game, but America’s game.
Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.
