Traditions are important, especially in baseball. You knew this post would start like this, but that’s because it’s true. Baseball isn’t just any hobby. It’s been passed down from parents to children for generations. There’s a reason that the platonic ideal of (if far from the best of) baseball movies stages its crescendo on this speech:
The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray.