Specifically, about the leisureliness itself of baseball. The sport in fact has its roots in the U.S. Labor movement; "8 hours to work, 8 hours to sleep, and 8 hours to do as we please" was the rallying cry of the first American Unionists (so much less ambitious than their Socialist counterparts in Europe), who were understandably resentful of their 14-hour work days in horrific factory conditions. The factory owners themselves, of course, were less than thrilled with the prospect of 8-hour work days, and claimed to be battling "indolence, loafing, and laziness" among the Lower Classes with their punishing work days.
This rhetoric, in turn, prompted the factory workers to lay claim to "indolence, loafing, and laziness" directly as a form of political resistance, which they expressed by playing baseball--for there is no sport more laid-back than baseball. Most the time, you'll note, the players are simply standing around, or leaning on the railing, casually waiting for things to happen. The most celebrated legends of baseball--e.g. Babe Ruth--are renowned for drinking, smoking, and walking around the bases. Baseball wasn't just lazy, it was proudly so--it was the working man claiming his right to leisure. It is perhaps no accident that baseball rose to its highest prominence in American culture at the same time that the U.S. Labor movement achieved its greatest gains: the 8-hour work week, overtime pay, weekends, paid holidays, minimum wages, workman's comp.
It is perhaps also not accidental that baseball has been displaced by football in the American psyche at the same time that the Working Class has been displaced. U.S. Manufacturing is mostly automated now, where it hasn't actively been in decline; consequently, the U.S. Labor force has moved from a largely manufacturing economy to a service one. This point is integral: for in the days when factories dominated the U.S. landscape, men worked hard labor jobs--thus proving to others and themselves their own strength, virility, and masculinity--and baseball was how they unwound and relaxed on weekends.
But the majority of our jobs are no longer considered "manly"--our labor is now largely sedentary, service-oriented, with little chance to prove our virility, our masculinity. Fight Club, both the novel and the film, rose to prominence in reaction against an "emasculating" economy, as men fought in underground clubs to vent their pent-up frustration; however, it wasn't fight clubs that arose in real life to give us vents, but American Football. The violence, the toughness, the sheer danger of the sport, gave U.S. males an outlet for their aggression that they could no longer find in their careers.
Yet with this key difference: it is largely a vicarious outlet! For by contrast, when one watches baseball, one is being leisurely even as the players on the field are likewise being leisurely! That is, we are all being leisurely together! There is this unspoken camaraderie across social classes at a baseball game, all claiming their leisure time together at once.
But in football, the athletes are all taking the hits for the spectators! The latter may shout and scream and cheer, channeling and venting all their pent-up energy after a dull work-week; but it is the athletes alone who are subject to all that horrendous violence. Football is a sport wherein 40,000 people who need to exercise more watch 22 men who really need a rest. Despite all the face-paints and colorful costumes and DIY signs to the contrary, there is no genuine camaraderie between spectator and participant in football.
Likewise, in baseball, the crowd may cheer at, say, a double-play, or a home-run, but otherwise we are chatting amiably with our neighbors, hanging out with our friends--the game is as much about us as it is about them. But in football, good luck trying to chat casually with anyone! If you're not screaming the whole game through, then you're doing it wrong, for it's never about you, it's always about them.
We are disconnected from the athletes we watch in football: we likewise no longer feel truly connected to our products (made in China), our clothing (made in sweat-shops), our food (harvested by migrant workers); we are a long way removed from our American agricultural and manufacturing past, wherein we could directly and easily trace where all our products come from. Nowadays we have to advertise certain foods as "locally sourced," as though that were some strange, new thing.
The great popularity of baseball among Latinos is perhaps linked to the fact that they still work in physical labor, especially agriculture--they are still fighting for their right to leisure. (This agricultural-labor connection perhaps explains why our most famous baseball film, Field of Dreams, takes place on a farm, in a corn field).
We likewise all feel disconnected from our policy-makers, from our leaders, from the powerful; after slowly undoing the long gains of the Labor movement, CEOs now make hundreds of times more than their workers, far in excess of what they made in the hey-day of Unions (and of baseball). The recent rise of Bernie Sanders and (perversely) Trump likewise signals a deep and general resentment among working Americans, against a power-class that feels completely disconnected from their lived experiences.
We may still cheer on our favorite political parties, as we do our favorite football teams, but we do not feel like we are actually participating with them--in fact, the loudness of our cheers are usually in direct inverse proportion to our actual influence upon the actions on the field (unless you're a Seahawks fan, of course, but that's a topic for a different day). It is perhaps apropos that your average MLB baseball ticket is reasonably affordable to a working man--while only the rich can afford an NFL game.
I will be curious to see if and how football preserves its current cultural dominance, especially as the whole concussion controversy calls into question the violence inherent in football's whole exploitative system--which is in turn a metonym for our whole exploitative economic system. Moreover, that awareness of the violence endemic to our economic system is clearly spreading throughout our increasingly angry working class, at all point of the political spectrum. If current trends continue to boiling point, we may well return to baseball yet.
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