Baseball: America's Sport

Phase Two, Individual Project
Rob Gibbons
Colorado Technical University Online
SOC 215-1202B-07
June 3, 2012

Baseball is what many people call, “America’s Sport.” Many enjoy setting in front of their television, with a bag of chips and a cold drink while they watch their favorite professional team. People become fans for different reasons; some enjoy being outside, hanging out with friends or eating a stadium hot dog. There is a group of people that find baseball to be more than that. For them it brings them back to a time of playing with their “buddies,” going to get ice cream after the big win or maybe it’s memory of playing baseball when they were young, because after all little league baseball, is first and foremost meant to be fun.
U.S. citizens have been playing variations of these games sense the revolutionary war. In the 1840s, New Yorker Alexander Joy Cartwright and his acquaintances played a game they called "base ball." The game was very similar to what we know today (“History of Little League,” 2010) as baseball. In the years that followed, and in various places around the country, teams and clubs for adult men were created, leagues were formed, all of which were building blocks for professional baseball. It wasn’t until the late 1930’s that the same opportunities were created for pre-teen boys. Carl Stotz, who many refer to as the founder of little league baseball, started a three team league in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Stotz raised money by recruiting local businessmen to be sponsors, acquired equipment and uniforms for the boys and started three teams. On June 6, 1939, on a field he laid out himself, Lundy Lumber beat Lycoming Dairy, 23-8, and Little League baseball was born (Thomas, 1992). Since then, little league baseball has grown in popularity and now is played by young boys and girls all over the
They start out as young as four years old playing T-ball, and progress through the high school ages where they can play on travel teams. Both girls and boys are allowed to play, but that hasn’t always been the case. Until the 1970’s girls weren’t allowed to play in little league, but after bowing to lawsuits and bad publicity, little league organizations ended their prohibition against allowing girls to play (L. Van Auken and R. Van Auken, 2001). Little league baseball has always been and continues to be an amateur sport. The fan base is mainly mothers and fathers who show their support by cheering their children on. There are many people who experience the games, but are not parents. These are people that enjoy watching for the best reason of all, the fun of it.
Little league baseball is for people of all ages to enjoy. It has become a staple in almost every town in the USA. Sponsorship has become a status symbol for many businesses. You can walk into many small businesses across the country and find pictures of sponsored teams being displayed. The concepts of little league baseball have spread to other sports. Football, soccer, swimming and even go-cart racing, all have leagues for the very young. All of them follow the same principles of league play and organizational