In a piece on Thursday in the Daily Caller, writer Caroline May attempts to examine the reasons that conservatives are so drawn to baseball. An early graph:
Inherently American and merit-based, baseball and conservatism appear to share as tight an embrace as Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson after game seven of the 1955 World Series. “It has no clock, no ties and no Liberal intrusions into the organized progression,” conservative columnist and baseball enthusiast George Will once wrote.
The irony contained in that paragraph alone is worth the price of admission.
Do I need to point out that Pee Wee Reese hugging Jackie Robinson is the reason that many Southern Democrats became Republicans in the first place? I know that it almost killed conservative icon Strom Thurmond, which would have rendered the black children he fathered out of wedlock without financial support. More from May:
Fred Schwarz, of the National Review, theorizes that a major reason the game appeals to the conservative psyche is that it does not change. Where football and basketball have altered some of their rules over time to increase the intensity of their games, the distance from home plate to first base will always be ninety feet and a foul ball will always be a foul ball.
Nope, never changes. AT&T Park dimensions: Left field: 335 feet (2000), 339 feet (2004); left-center: 364 feet (2000), 364 feet (2004); center field: 404 feet (2000), 399 feet (2004); right-center: 420 feet (2000), 421 feet (2004); right field: 307 feet (2000), 309 feet (2004); backstop: 48 feet (2000).
“Baseball has more of a laws-and-not-men vibe, in the sense that penalties or fouls or violations called by officials play a much smaller role in baseball than they do in football, basketball, or hockey (balks are the only thing that springs to mind),” Schwarz told The Daily Caller. “Among other things, this leaves less room for administrative overrides of the basic rules, such as allowing the top players four or five steps before taking a shot in the NBA. And statistics provide a more complete description of the game in baseball than they do in other sports, which appeals to the Charles Murray types.”
In the name of Jim Joyce, I have never read a more ridiculous paragraph. Baseball is more influenced by the interpretation of officials than any sport known to man. And the rules vary from umpire to umpire. The basic rules seem static because baseball has been around longer. But there was a time when home runs used to be outs, batters got six balls and four strikes, the mound rose and lowered at the whim of the commissioner, etc.
The greatness of baseball comes with the realization that it transcends politics. It’s the one place I can go and not know or care about the voting habits of the guy sitting next to me … unless that guy is making out with Barbara Bush. I’m done. Make your own call on this.
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The conservative love affair with baseball [The Daily Caller]
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- Bobsport - Sep 23, 2010 at 8:43 PM
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How can baseball be “conservative” when it permits female reporters to interview players while nude in the locker room? It is simple pandering to the media, not a “conservative” position. A real conservative would show some respect, and require ALL reporters (male and female) to wait outside while the athletes showered and dressed – or have a screened-off area inside the locker room where reporters could interview, hear the noise, but not view naked bodies? Women’s
basketball is the real “conservative” sport – reporters are not scoping naked female athletes under the guise of “reporting” and the coverage seems to be as good.
