B

Famous US columnist (专栏作家) George F. Will once wrote: “Baseball is a habit. The slow build to the end of each game, the rhythm of the long season – these are the essentials and they are remarkably unchanged over nearly a century and a half. Of how many American institutions (制度) can that be said?”

He is right. Baseball, only one word, is enough to make millions of people in the US think of many images – spring afternoons, cold beers and hot dogs.

As the USA Today newspaper put it, “A hot dog at the ballpark is always better than one out of the microwave.”

Delicious treats aside, baseball is also a game for fathers and sons to enjoy. They play catch with each other on lawns (草坪) and in parks for many years. Fathers pass down favorite teams to their sons. Grandfathers share stories of games played long ago.

Many US children try to collect trading cards with the pictures of their favorite players on them. In schools it is as likely for friends to trade baseball cards as it is for them to trade lunches.

Baseball players are known as “the boys of spring” because that is the time of year at which the sport is most often played; indeed, the new season of MLB (Major League Baseball) began on April 3. And the players come in all shapes and sizes. To play baseball you don’t have to be tall like a basketball player or strong like an American footballer. You just need to want to have fun.

Besides, baseball games are not as fast-paced (快节奏的) as basketball games so they allow viewers to relax, talk and get to know each other.

Today, baseball is not the US’ most-watched sport, but it is its most historical. It has gone past being simply a game and has become part of the fabric (构造) of US culture.

As The Telegraph newspaper noted, “Baseball is as American as apple pie, red, white and blue (the colors of the US national flag) and Grandma’s house.”