Introduction

For the uninitiated, baseball, while only a game, is more than a game. Baseball culture includes the game, the field, the players, the ballparks, and the fans. It remains a sport created in and for simpler times, yet is a complex sport that is greater than any one individual, team, or era.

The lure of baseball is in its subtleties: situational defence, pitch location, pitch sequence, statistics, ball parks, history, and player personalities. For the avid, keenly enthusiastic fan, the game, even at its slowest, is never boring because of these nuances. Therefore, to appreciate baseball does require some knowledge of the rules, but it also requires a deep observation of those endearing and enduring qualities that gives baseball its unique style.

Baseball is among the oldest and most popular team sports in the United States. Although the origins and evolution of the various bat-and-ball games are murky, the game we know as baseball is primarily an American invention. As such, going back to at least the 1870s, American newspapers were calling the sport "The National Pastime" or "The National Game". No small part of its appeal is that it is mostly played during the warm, relatively leisurely months of the year, thus it is also called "The Summer Game".