In 1856, baseball was anointed the “national pastime” in a letter to the editor in the New York Mercury newspaper.
On Feb. 2, 1876, Chicago businessman William Hulbert helped form the National League, which included the Cubs — then called the White Stockings — as a charter member.
The game survived two world wars, racism, steroids, the infield fly rule, the designated hitter, George Steinbrenner and even the Black Sox scandal. It endured the Great Depression, inspired our national anthem to be payed at all sporting events and became a great American constant.
The game also saved America more than once, most memorably in recent history after Sept. 11, 2001, when America took a gut punch with New York City’s twin towers crumbling to the ground and nearly 3,000 people losing their lives.
When the Atlanta Braves played the Mets at Shea Stadium 10 days later, it was the first professional sports game played in New York following the 9/11 tragedy. During the seventh-inning stretch, Liza Minnelli inspired Americans with her emotionally rousing “New York, New York” performance before a packed house featuring many uniformed first responders.
Liza even stopped to hug and kiss Mets center fielder Jay Payton, who was waiting on deck.
It was a first-rate example of what historian and philosopher Jacques Barzun meant when he said, “Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.”
From Ernest Thayer’s poem “Casey at the Bat,” Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” comedy bit and Lou Gehrig’s “Luckiest man on the face of the Earth” speech, baseball has energized America.
On Jan. 15, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued his iconic “green light” letter to baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. It was just 39 days after Pearl Harbor, and he was publicly encouraging the game of baseball to keep stirring America’s soul:
“I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going. There will be fewer people unemployed, and everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before,” Roosevelt said.
The American pastime, in fact, became a virtual participant in the World War II effort. More than 500 major league players served in the Armed Forces, including 39 future Hall of Famers like Yogi Berra, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and Hank Greenberg.
With more than 4,000 minor leaguers joining them, the service branches were soon awash with baseball players.
During World War II, the Great Lakes Naval Station in North Chicago actively recruited solid players to dominate other service teams. It saw 43 Major League Baseball players join its ranks as it compiled a war years record of 188-32.
Baseball’s war impact went still further during this period. Many of the 130,000 American prisoners of war overseas were skilled baseball players and were commonly allowed to play ball in the German camps. The Germans didn’t mind the entertainment, plus the elevated morale made the days a bit easier for all. To be clear, these camps weren’t picnics. Indeed, all of them were dreadful. But baseball sometimes brought a rare human moment to the darkness.
The game has always possessed a swashbuckling, gritty charm sometimes driven by colorful miscreants like Branch Rickey, Bill Veeck, Charlie Finley and Ted Turner. It also comes with the continual warts such as 2025’s illegal pitch-rigging and sports betting indictments.
Yet even baseball’s guile sometimes commands a certain allure. On April 29, 1983, the Cubs lost a close one to the Dodgers before a sparse Wrigley Field crowd while dropping to 5-14. When asked about growing fan criticism, frustrated manager Lee Elia uncorked an unforgettable three-minute rant spiced with 30 or so f-bombs as he supported his players but attacked the fans, saying, “Eighty-five percent of the world is working; the other 15 come out here.”
How can we reconcile baseball’s disparate personality and contradictions? We don’t. Perhaps that is the beauty and the allure driving the game’s genuine Americana. It is also why Liza performing at Shea not only worked, it was virtually inevitable. With that stirring televised moment, America was enabled to be itself once again.
Eldon Ham is a faculty member at IIT/Chicago-Kent College of Law, teaching sports law and justice. He is the author of five books on the role of sports history in America.