I Hate Baseball!

Callum Sparrowhawk

What exactly is the attraction? Dubbed, “America’s Pastime” Baseball surely has to be the worst national sport in the world.

Now, there are a number of reasons I despise baseball and almost everything associated with it, but the biggest bone I have to pick is with the “World Series”. It’s not the ‘World’ Series at all, it’s the American championship and perhaps you could include Canada. I know that the US government generally like to consider themselves the ‘Governors of the World’ but America is absolutely and inexplicably not, the world. I just don’t understand how the winners of the Major League can be proclaimed World Champions until they accept challenges from teams from other nations. The European champions of soccer are likely to be the best team in the world, and they are, but they had to prove it. Similarly, the Pittsburgh Steelers are likely to be the best American Football team in the world, but they cannot be proclaimed world champions as they have not proven it.

Secondly, the game is incredibly dull, so dull in fact that I would rather watch a live debate at the Houses of Parliament, which is just like Congress for my Colonial cousins. A game of baseball has nine innings, and the MLB games frequently last for longer than 3 hours. Pitchers can throw a perfect game where the other team does not hit a single ball. How unbearably boring…! Baseball to me just seems so un-American. The finest attributes of American sports are that they are fast-paced and exhilarating affairs. Basketball, for example, is a fine game that captures the hearts and minds of sports fans all over the globe. Baseball doesn’t, period.

At this point, I’m sure many of you are wondering how my complaints about Baseball are any different to the groans of those who fail to see the attraction of cricket. Admittedly, test cricket can be very, very tedious. Fortunately, I don’t watch test cricket and there is this wonderful new thing known as Twenty20. Baseball must be a dying sport; the sheer length of the game alone must be causing it to lose its appeal in a society obsessed with speed and convenience. In my opinion, baseball needs to move with the times. Chop down the innings, make the fielding side get every batsman out. I can’t imagine anything more exciting than being at Yankee Stadium when A. Rod is the last man left in needing to smash two consecutive home runs to win the World Series. Well, perhaps if I was watching a more exciting sport such as basketball, or curling for that fact.