"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball."
- Jacques Barzan, French-born American historian And after they do, make sure to wake them back up. The rest of the world has long viewed our national pastime as a confusing snore, an endless series of scratches, spits. and feints interrupted only occasionally by a few seconds of action. We, of course, tenaciously defend the beauty of the pastoral game, secure in the knowledge that outsiders can't possibly understand the depth of what is taking place when nothing is going on during a baseball game.