I am a baseball extreme fan and just wonder where these traditions began and why.
129178
7th Inning Stretch - President Taft stood up in the 7th inning to stretch. The fans, thinking he was leaving, stood out of respect. Thus the tradtion was born.\nNational Anthem - First started during the 1918 World Series; the band played the Star Spangled Banner during the 7th inning stretch (remember America had just entered World War I at the time) - the crowd rose to its feet in unison giving rise to the tradition, although now it is played before the first pitch, not the 7th inning stretch.
239395
If you took away the coaches and parents you would not get a team,  but you would get a bunch of kids who will either have fun or fight like cats and dogs.  the whole purpose of baseball is for the kids to learn about the game and to learn structure and how to deal with pressure ,  I have made it my first priority for them to realize that fun is the name of the game and ,  if my kids arent having fun,  they do not need to play.
446696
Baseball is a classier sport then football most teams wont allow the extra Bling.  I use to were flip-up sunglasses if you can still find them.  Or the bright colored cleats.
493332
Wow, thatniceguy gave a really long answer.  Here's a better answer.  Visit Cooperstown and The National Baseball Hall of Fame.  It will give you all the history you want to know and it is a great trip and a fun cozy town.  I've been there twice and I would go back again and again.  Baseball is a great game!!
226735
i'd say baseball is the greatest for a few reasons.  firstly, its the sport i played most and was best at as a kid, so that helped fuel my passion for the game.\n\nwithout my personal bias however, baseball is great because it is one of the few games not played with a clock.  there is no time limit, no gun, no buzzer, no horn that will sound to end the game......as long as you dont make outs, you are always in the game and have a chance to win.  like yogi berra said, "it aint over til its over".\n\nand although some people find the pace of a baseball too slow or too boring in general.....with just a little effort and understanding of the game, even at its slowest pace, the game(the mind games) can be fascinating.  those mind games include the battel between a pitcher and a baserunner...stepping off the mound and/or throwing to first to forace a runner back and hopefully make him stay closer to the bag for fear of being picked off.  the mind games between the pitcher and batter, each trying to outguess the other as to what pitch and location that pitch will come.\n\nalso inlcuded is the ongoing "chess match" between the opposing managers.......making the right pitching substitutions, the right pinch hitter moves etc etc.\n\ni love football and hockey and the faster pace those games offer, but baseball is just so much more special.
238968
Most people are against war, so they care less. Baseball has been around longer than this war. Baseball is something that may keep people's mind off of the pain of war.
342242
First these are nations that are extremely impoverished. There is one way out of that poverty in many of these nations and that is to play MLB. So literally many boys in these countries recieve a mit on the day they are born. It has become a custom in some of these nations. These kids practice baseball constantly. \n\nMLB has established massive training facilities that many of these kids spend years at. The best are kept from year to year until they are signed by the team hosting that camp. Many unsigned players from these camps go out as free agents and latch on in MLB tryouts. \n\nIn the US, scouts rely on High school coaches and college baseball to train players. Most Americans don't touch a mit until they are at least 5 or 6 years old. When they do the spirit of non-competitiveness makes it difficult for players to obtain the necessary level of competitiveness to make up for the lack of training they have gotten as compared to Latin American players. Then scouting is spotty at best in American schools. Many regions are copletely ignored. Stats are almost meaningless to the scouts. The level of compitition is too varied. A guy hitting .500 at one school might be lucky to hit .300 in another and access to nationwide stats difficult if not impossible. So scouts go to the same schools over and over again. Thus many players in the US have parents who literally move into scouted school districts just so thier kid actually gets looked at. This means US players are far less likely to see a scout and when they do it's often for one game only. A bad day and they are pretty much locked out of the majors unless they go to college. Latin American players once they get into a camp have full time proffesional development from MLB staff and scouts see them over the years on a frequent basis. US players often are stuck with incompentent coaching staff thier only qualification being a love of sports and graduation with a degree in Phys Ed from a university. \n\nUS players even the poorest in the US have many opportunities to get out of poverty or do not live in poverty at all. The odds of even the best athelete making the Majors at all much less becoming a star are at least 1,000,000 to 1. Few parents want to see thier children waste thier lives as an athelete when they can become doctors, lawyers, programmers, accountants and such. Latin Ameircan kids have baseball and soccer or they live desperate lives in abject poverty for the bulk of Latin Americans in nationst hat produce large numbers of Baseball players such as the Dominican Republic. \n\nThe exception to all this is Puerto Rico which is technically both American and Latin American. Peurto Rico produces an abnormally large number of players but Peurto Ricans are exempted from the draft, so they are scouted and signed by US clubs.  Puerto Rico is not exactly wealthy, but it's citizens have many options, including pretty much all that are availible to any other US Citizen. There are many Puerto Ricans working at NASA, residing on boards of directors in US companies, working in Hollywood or many other prestigious of well paying jobs on the mainland. So they have opportunity. Baseball is just a very popular sport there and kids start very young.
673441
Because they are long-time supporters of the team, and they might get frustrated with them, but they have a soft spot in their hearts for them.  They also supported them when they were good, so they now want to be there when they are good again.  Look at Cubs fans!
30383
Fair weather fans--what a concept.  I can certainly understand having more than one team you like, and not everyone can easily develop an attachment to one team.  However, what's the point of shifting your loyalties at the drop of a hat.  Maybe it's indicative of the transient nature of professional athletes today.  Most seem to have no loyalty other than a bigger payday.
168095
many many many differences in the two, yet many similarities. The playing stratigies are different also. \n\nActually the game of baseball really originated from a game which was played more like softball! The balls were similar to the 16" softball game played today.\n\nAlso, a seven inning softball game goes a lot quicker than a seven inning baseball game! I have called a seven inning BB game which laste 4 hours, and also a seven inning SB game in 50 minutes!. Love 'em both though!
272899
The World Series came from the New York World newspaper during the 19th century when Major League Baseball was started, because they owned the rights to it, it was call the New York World Series, then later shorten to the World Series.\n\nTry using another way to put down Americans, 'cause this one seems a little invalid now doesn't it---okay now I'm getting a little arrogant, he he.
206807
All of them are American but my favorite is Baseball. Anyone can learn the rules and play. With the others it is too expensive for most to participate.
467014
I read this in "Our Game," by John Thorn:\nDouglass Wallop put it nicely:\n\nSaturday morning and hurtling from the house with a glove buttoned over his belt and a bat over his shoulder, rushing to the nearest vacant lot, perhaps the nearest alley, where the other guys were gathering, a place where it would always be spring. For him, baseball would always have the sound and look and smell of that morning and of other mornings just like it. Only by an accident of chance would he find himself, in the years to come, up in the grandstand, looking on. But for a quirk of fate, he himself would be down on that field; it would be his likeness on the television screen and his name in the newspaper high on the list of .300 hitters. He was a fan, but a fan only incidentally. He was, first and always, himself a baseball player. \n\n\n...for my perspective, baseball is what connects me to my great-grandfather, whom I never met, and the child and young man I was, whom I shall never meet again.  And for all its intricacies, just the simple acts of hitting, catching, throwing, and running are more beautiful to me than all the verse and prose that have been poured over the game.\n\n\nPS Curling is boring too but soooo fun!
501248
No every generation has gone through this. Baseball is not the same as it was when you or I were kids, nor was that game the same as our parents, but on the basic level of the game it is the same the rosters have been set at 22-25 men since the early 1900s, the mound has been 60 ft 6 inches away from home plate since the early 1900s, basepaths 90 ft from base to base, the changes that have come about the DH, free agency, and unions have been talked about since the early 1900s. One of the biggest changes the BIGGEST in terms of how the game was played is on its way out, artificial turf. About 3-5 teams now have artificial turf, Minnesota, Toronto, Florida maybe or Tampa Bay any way from the early 70s to the 90s turf played a bigger role in baseball than anything it added speed, to both the offense and defense, made the stolen base much more of a threat, in the mid 70s almost every team had guys stealing 30-40 or more bases a year and these were succesful teams look at how the Royals of the 1970s were built and the success they had as a team, Amos Otis, Frank White, Willie Wilson later on even George Brett had some decent base stealing numbers. Just take a look at those teams from the 1970s. Anyway the 70s also had the beginning of free agency and people thought that would destroy baseball, baseball has lumbered on. In the 40s-50s and into the sixties people thought integration was going to destroy baseball, in the 40s it eas the war, before that the depression, and before that the White Sox scandal and many smaller and sometimes bigger scandal we never hear of involving gambling. So in closing  baseball is changing and staying the same it is bigger than the players although very few of them realize that, it will keep on making us happy and sad at the same time, it will keep us entertained and p i s s us off, it will destroy some players lifes by offering too much temptation (ie Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, Joe Jackson) and a lot of the players will rise above the fray and and tantalize us with feats of grace, power, and humility.
70766
Tell me you people are joking  !!!!   You really have no idea do you ?????   Of course baseball is played in Europe.  Are you seriously comparing baseball to cricket ??\nBaseball is played in England, Holland, Belgium, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Sweeden, Greece, Croatia, Ukraine, and Russia.\nI guess most of you are Americans, wake up guys !!! there is somewhere called  " THE  REST  OF  THE  WORLD"    You really need learn that there are countries in the world other than the good old USA !!!!!
126511
A lot of them are usually due to the fact the players try to do too much too soon.  Also as I'm sure you've noticed, there is a lot of time between plays, so unlike most of the other sports, baseball players are unable to keep their muscles warm, and then required to use them at full speed for a short amount of time.  Think of that poor RF who could conceivably go through an entire game of about 2.5 hours without having a ball hit to him, and then in the bottom of the 9th may have to make a 300+ft throw to home to save a run.  That'll kill your arm in a hurry, especially early in the season.
397231
I agree with you, it IS crazy. But sadly, that is the reality of sports at the big league level. It is no longer about the sport instead, it's about entertainment. Real sports fans like you, me, and the rest of the purists are priced and ignored from the game by the means to be able to pay the players. I don't enjoy the atmosphere at games. The obnoxiously loud music, ads on everything, and exorbitant prices have taken the game out of the reason to attend. Plus some of the players wear jewelry like they are in street gangs, some wear their hair like they came off the beach, pant legs touch the grass WHILE STANDING and the leagues have brought down the quality of play due to expansion. Mediocrity - some call it parity - is the norm. All I can do is not attend, buy, or even follow baseball anymore. Of course, that decision was made much easier due to the mismanagement of a team in town that thinks it is a big league club. The Phillies.