Baseball survives as a national pastime, according to Jim Vankoski, a baseball historian and one of the curators of the Sports Legends of Delaware County Museum in Radnor.
“Baseball has been through so much. It’s basically withstood the test of time,” Jim Vankoski said. “Where would we be without baseball? It’s the only game I can think of that’s not played on a rectangle. You’ve got that diamond. Diamonds are forever.”
Vankoski thinks baseball will stay in America’s consciousness, writes Brad Nau for CBS News Philadelphia.
The MLB, for example, saw its largest attendance in seven years in the 2024 season. That may have been helped by rule changes in 2023, which brought more action to the game.
Vankoski does acknowledge that baseball’s not the neighborhood sport it used to be.
Chez Angeloni, who pitched for the Red Sox, but who now co-owns a baseball training program in the Philadelphia area, said screen time is making a difference.
“There are a lot of kids in front of screens today. That’s an obvious thing,” Angeloni said. “You’re not going to dispute that. Because if you don’t like to just hit balls, if you don’t like to go out and practice, it’s not going to happen.”
Read more about baseball’s modern appeal at CBS News Philadelphia.
