Pastimes

OK so this has nothing to do with busting
the cover off of the baseball,
but it's easily one of the best google
image results for "The Sandlot,"
we all know why.

Remember that fateful scene from The Sandlot, the one that eventually led Smalls, Benny, Ham, Squints, Yeah Yeah, Kenny, Bertram Grover Weeks, Repeat, and Timmy into the "the biggest pickle any of them had ever seen"?  No, not the one where Smalls idiotically steals his step-dads Babe Ruth signed baseball, think...why did he need a baseball in the first place?  Yes, the scene where Benny busts the cover off of the ball.  If you don’t remember this, perhaps you do recall a similar scene in the Disney classic Angels in the Outfield (1994).  If neither of these events are familiar to you, you are either not American or (if you are American) had a sad, empty childhood and I pity you. 

http://info.mymovies.ge/

            The sport of baseball is renowned throughout the U.S. of A. as the great American pastime.  Although not quite as glamorized as American Football, baseball claims its place as a staple of American culture.  The international popularity of baseball, however, is limited to parts of South America, of the Caribbean and of Eastern Asia.  The rest of the world claims another sport as what childhood memories are built around, as the source of widespread excitement and game-watching parties.  Yes, of course I am talking about soccer.  Although steadily gaining in popularity since the celebrity of Pelé, the phenomenon of the world’s sport has somehow managed to skip over America, sitting perpetually behind baseball, American football, basketball, and hockey. 

            The rest of the world, however, cherishes original football.  Rather than deeply analyzing this disparity between one culture and most of the other ones, I will simply show some pictures describing it.  Bear in mind, photos of kids playing in the street or on sand pitches in torn up clothes and flat balls may seem stereotypical of photography taken by westerner's in non-western countries, but a picture of kids playing soccer in Senegal, for example, is just as much a stereotype of a trip to a "developing" country as a picture of kids playing baseball in their neighborhood sandlot is a stereotype of American moms showing off their trophy kids.  After all, however true or false or politically correct they may be, stereotypes do exist for a reason.

Bassoul, Fatick, Senegal

Yoff, Dakar, Senegal

Not so stereotypical, but needless to say, USA won this match
Ngor Beach, Dakar, Senegal
Photo Credit: Alex Mendrek-Laske