What Baseball Teaches Us About Americans

As a sport, it is really all about failure. Or more precisely how the players psychologically handle failure - the fact that they are going to miss the ball more often than they hit it. And as I have sat in the stands over the years, I have begun to realise just why there is such a rich tradition of treating baseball as a metaphor for life in America. This is indeed the land of opportunity where children grow up being told what a "great job" they are doing and how they might all be president one day. Which is all fine of course, except that for many, perhaps for most Americans, success never really comes. For much of the half decade I have lived here, this country has been struggling economically. All across the land, in previously well-off towns where half the high street has now closed down, you meet people fighting to make ends meet. It has also been arguable in recent times that America itself is failing, losing prestige and influence around the world while new powers such as China are on the rise. But, just as their baseball players do, Americans are adept at picking themselves up when the market fails.