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VOICE ONE:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA, in VOA Special English. I'm SteveEmber.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Gwen Outen. This week on our program -- baseball andAmerican culture.

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VOICE ONE:

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The game is traditionally known asAmerica's national pastime. The men who play it professionally are"the boys of summer." Baseball is considered part of the Americanspirit. Books, songs, movies, plays, poems and lots of baseballterms have become part of the American experience.

An exhibit called "Baseball as America" is currently on show atthe National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Itcontains more than five-hundred historical items. Most come from theNational Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York.Many people believe that baseball first started in this small townin eighteen-thirty-nine.

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In nineteen-oh-five, a committee was appointed to study thehistory of baseball. It was called the Mills Commission. Three yearslater, the Mills Commission reported its findings. The reportdeclared that a Civil War hero named Abner Doubleday inventedbaseball in Cooperstown.

Evidence collected by the commission showed that Doubledaymodernized what started as a game of catch with as many as fiftyplayers. The evidence showed that he reduced the number of players,added bases and created a playing area in the shape of a diamond.

No one knows for sure exactly how baseball began. But a copy ofthe commission report can be seen in the exhibit at the NaturalHistory Museum. So can one of the first baseballs used by AbnerDoubleday. The ball was found in a farmhouse near Cooperstown innineteen-thirty-four.

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Organized professional baseball started with the National League.Teams formed this league in eighteen-seventy-six.

Baseball was supposed to stand for American beliefs like equalityand the chance to succeed. But the sport was representative ofsociety at the time. The National League was for white players only.

By eighteen-eighty-eight, more than sixty black players were onminor league teams. Barred from the National League, black playersjoined what were called the Negro Leagues. Teams began to appear inblack communities throughout the country.

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The unofficial ban against black players in the National Leaguelasted seventy years.

JackieRobinson's Dodgers' Jersey

World War Two and the civil rightsmovement in the United States helped end the racial divisions inprofessional baseball. Jackie Robinson became the first black playerto break the color barrier. The Brooklyn Dodgers accepted him totheir team in nineteen forty-seven. Soon, other black players beganto join major league teams.

The "Baseball as America" exhibit includes a shirt, hat and glovethat Jackie Robinson wore as a Brooklyn Dodger. Also included is anexample of the hundreds of death threats and hate letters that hereceived.

Blacks were not the only group excluded. Hispanic and Japaneseplayers were also among those rejected.

Yet white Americans were not the only ones who enjoyed baseball.The museum exhibit includes baseball equipment used byJapanese-Americans held at an interment camp during World War Two.

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In nineteen-ten President William Howard Taft started a custom.President Taft threw out the first pitch on opening day of thebaseball season that year. Almost every president since then hascontinued the tradition of the opening day pitch.

Signed baseballs thrown by Presidents Warren Harding, HerbertHoover, Calvin Coolidge and Dwight Eisenhower as part of theexhibit. So are baseballs thrown by Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon,Jimmy Carter and the first President George Bush.

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On December seventh, nineteen-forty-one, Japanese forces launcheda surprise attack on the American Navy base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.As a result, the United States entered World War Two.

The baseball season was suspended after the attack. Five weekslater, the head of Major League baseball asked President FranklinDelano Roosevelt if the season should continue. The president saidyes. He wrote the baseball commissioner that the game was a way toraise American spirits.

That letter from President Roosevelt is part of the "Baseball asAmerica" exhibit. Other items from World War Two include objectsfrom the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Thisleague was formed to help keep American spirits high during the war.At that time, some of baseball's most famous male players were awayas pilots and soldiers.

The war ended in nineteen-forty-five. The women's league ended innineteen-fifty-four after it lost popularity.

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Major League baseball postponed games for one week after theterrorist attacks of September eleventh, two-thousand-one. Severalweeks later, a New York City firefighter discovered a baseball inthe ruins of the World Trade Center. That ball is also in the"Baseball as America" exhibit at the Natural History Museum inWashington.

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Baseball and a similar game, softball, are among the first sportsthat American children learn to play. Many children compete on teamsthrough Little League programs.

A LittleLeague batter gets ready for the pitch

Boys and girls can play togetheron Little League teams. Little League Baseball began to accept girlsin nineteen-seventy-four as a result of court action. That year,Little League also established a softball program. Girls and boyscan play either baseball or softball, but most girls choosesoftball.

There are more than seven thousand Little League programs in morethan one hundred countries around the world.

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Children between the ages of five and eight often play a gamecalled T-ball. T-ball is similar to baseball. However, the ball isnot thrown to the hitter. Instead, the ball sits on a stick called atee.

The "Baseball as America" exhibit includes pictures of T-ballgames on the grounds of the White House. Games take place there eachmonth during the baseball season, which runs from April to October.

President Bush started this tradition three years ago. Before heentered politics, he owned part of the Texas Rangers baseball team.

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Ten years ago, Major League baseball players went on strike overpay and other issues. Part of the nineteen-ninety-four season andall the championship games that year were cancelled. The start ofthe nineteen-ninety-five season was delayed.

When play finally began, many people had lost interest. Theythought players earned too much and cared too little about the fans.Public support for baseball was at an all-time low.

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The national pastime worked hard to save itself from becoming agame past its time. In nineteen-ninety-eight a homerun race betweentwo players helped renew interest in baseball. That year MarkMcGwire and Sammy Sosa each broke the record for the most homerunsin one season.

In nineteen-twenty-seven Babe Ruth set a record with sixtyhomeruns. That record stood for more than thirty years, until RogerMaris hit sixty-one.

Sammy Sosa finished the nineteen-ninety-eight season withsixty-six homeruns. Mark McGwire had seventy. Now, their bats andthe bats of Babe Ruth and Roger Maris are all part of "Baseball asAmerica."

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The exhibit closes October third at the National Museum ofNatural History in Washington. But it will travel to other Americancities through two-thousand-six. Internet users can find out more onthe Web at baseballasamerica.org.

VOICE ONE:

Our program was written by Jill Moss and produced by Caty Weaver.I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE ONE:

And I'm Gwen Outen. Join us again next week for another reportabout life in the United States on the VOA Special English program,THIS IS AMERICA.

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