The National Pastime

Feb. 10, 2023

I read an interesting article entitled “The National Pastime.” According to the article, baseball is not America’s national pastime anymore. Two things caused its decline. One is professional football’s availability on TV in the mid-1960s. The second is its slow pace. Numbers support the argument.

The article got me wondering what’s Japan’s national pastime. My guess is soccer though I have no numbers to back it up. It is simply a speculation based on my observation. In my neighborhood I see many kids playing with soccer balls. But those playing baseball tend to be older and smaller in number. Suppose my observation reflects reality, one reason for soccer’s greater popularity may be attributed to the fact that you only need a ball to do it, and also that it’s fun to practice solo. Baseball requires many tools. You need someone to throw a ball to you when you want to practice hitting a ball. Soccer allows you to practice hours on end all kinds of exciting tricks without anyone to practice them with.