The game of baseball would not have survived if everyone involved gave up and did not accept differences. The athletes and groups involved in early baseball growth were very diverse, but baseball itself brought them together and allowed them to have a common goal and interest. I think this is one of the main reasons why baseball is "America's past time," because it in essence was formed basically like our own country was. Our founding forefathers had many differences and disagreements, but they did not give up, and they compromised. This was done because they had one common goal and interest, to form a union, a nation. I believe it is this very rich history that unites us all and keeps us interested in the game of baseball. We feel as if we can go out and be a part of this culture, and perhaps make history ourselves. Its this drive of hope that inspires us. All it takes is hope, and anything is possible. .
After a twenty-year period of franchise movement, league expansions, and the creation of divisions within leagues, baseball became organizationally stable in the late 1970s. Attendance grew dramatically throughout the 1980s, and more people attended major league baseball games (over 50 million per year at the end of the decade) than at any other time in the games history. Baseball has been America's most popular sport for so long mainly because it has successfully straddled some of the nation's most important cultural divisions. Though it was born among the respectable working class and sporting middle class, the game's cultural antecedents lay in the street culture of saloon-based volunteer fire companies, militias, theater partisans, street gangs, and political factions. The National League explicitly appealed to more middle-class audiences by requiring its teams to charge fifty cents, ban the sale of alcohol, and refuse to play Sundays. The rival American Association appealed to immigrant and working-class audiences by charging a quarter, selling liquor, and playing Sunday ball.
