Baseball Is Outdated; America Needs a New Pastime

Baseball is generally considered to be America's pastime. However, upon attending a recent college football (BSU vs. Oregon... and yes, it was awesome), I'm inclined to disagree. Football is a much more appropriate obsession for warrior society like ours. Warrior society, you ask? Allow me to explain.

First off, I must pay baseball its due respect. Baseball has served us well as a pastime for many years. It gave us Babe Ruth, a legend first and then a not-so-delicious candy bar that borrowed his name. (A red, white and blue candy bar for the record.) Baseball also allowed us to relate Teddy Roosevelt's Big Stick diplomacy to something besides the phallus--surely a boon middle-school history teachers everywhere. (Phallus means penis by the way.) But now, this passive, cordial sport just isn't compatible with our society.

I can't deny that baseball still has some distinctly American traits. For instance, it's one of the few sports where athleticism is not required of the athletes. I'm not saying there isn't skill involved of course--Hell, I struck out in tee-ball--but it suffices to say that baseball players aren't exactly Spartans when it comes to physical fitness. And why should they be? If they don't play in the outfield, the longest possible sustained bout of activity is a 360-foot sprint--and that only happens if they hit an inside-the-parker. Another authentically American aspect of the sport is its demographics, i.e. almost entirely white. I was going to make a sweeping generalization here that baseball consists of a bunch of old, fat, rich white guys watching young, not-quite-as-fat, rich white guys. I thought that might be a bit unfair though so I decided to look it up. It turns out I wasn't too far off. Rich people and old people are more likely to watch baseball than others according to a Gallup Poll. (Admittedly, it said nothing about their race or weight, so I'm still assuming a little.) Similarly, 59.5 percent of the players are white. (Again, sadly no data on weight, or at least none that I cared to dig up.) And lastly, is there anything more American than the hot dog, a nondescript mixture of fat that tastes great as long as you don't think too much. (That's a pretty good metaphor for our country now that I think about it...) But I digress...

In spite of all of these wonderful American traits, it's high time that we changed America's pastime to football. There were other sports in the running of course. Take Nascar for instance. Yes, with its flagrant waste of energy, profligate amounts of pollution, disdain for athleticism, and totally unrefined fan base, Nascar was a serious competitor. Golf was also in the running thanks to its inherent elitism and reprehensible use of water and land. (More on this coming soon.) But in the end, football is the clear victor.

To understand why, let's first consider tailgating. Dedicated fans take drive down to the stadium several hours before kickoff to have a barbeque. Of course, to get everything there, they will almost certainly be driving a big I'm-compensating-for-something truck or SUV. (Why do they have this truck you ask? Well, it's probably because they use its payload capacity once a year to go four-wheeling or boating.) Then they spend the afternoon eating conventional American food like hamburgers or the aforementioned nondescript fat mixture, and drinking all the cheap beer they can lay their hands on. And let's not forget the implements for consumption. If we're lucky, they'll use paper plates and not styrofoam, but it's all disposable. The beer bottles and cans are recyclable of course, but at the Oregon, no bins were available. Awesome. Tailgating pretty much maxes out on American-ness. Overconsumption of fossil fuels, check. Horribly unhealthy food, check. Lots of unnecessary waste, check.

(If my opinion of tailgating seems overly harsh, it's probably because last week they literally didn't have anything for me to eat. I am ruled by my stomach you know...)

Recently, I heard a great tongue-in-cheek description of football from a fitness instructor. It went something like this: "Football is a sport where eleven people on the desperately need rest and thousands of people in the stands desperately need exercise." Oh how true that is. I think there's a practical reason Bronco Stadium has benches instead of seats; people wouldn't fit. I'm thinking now of that vocal bearded gentleman in my section who completes his look with a ponytail, sunglasses, and a textbook overflowing tuck-in job. You know what I'm talking about. It's where the shirt is tucked in, but the fat still manages to spill over the top. So sexy.

These are critical features of course, but the most American aspect of football is the violence. It's our modern-day equivalent of gladiatorial combat. It's an acceptable way to satisfy our primal bloodlust. That's why we admire big hits and there's an entire segment on Sportscenter called Jacked Up. And I know we pretend to be concerned when someone gets injured, but let's face it: we don't start cheering till he GETS OFF THE FIELD.

And what about the flyover before kickoff? Never mind how stupid it is to fly a plane so some people can see you flying a plane. Why does everyone cheer? I understand pledging allegiance to the flag; it represents freedom (or it did at least). But what do fighter jets symbolize if not the American empire? Some may say they protect our freedom, but there haven't been hostile planes in our airspace since Pearl Harbor. They are a symbol of American domination, not merely security. Here they inspire ignorant cheers, abroad they excite the deepest fears. We're cheering for the home team, with the knowledge that we can't lose. Deep down, we know we're kicking the bad guys' asses (even though we don't know who they are). So we cheer for the planes like we cheer for the free safety; our bloodlust must be satisfied.

America's pastime needs to be updated. Baseball served us well, but now it's far too civil. And football captures the essence of Americanism: it's wasteful and it's violent. What more could we ask?