Shifting Cultural Tectonic Plates: Baseball

I’m passionate about culture. Peter Drucker said that “culture eats strategy for breakfast” and as a life coach one of my favorite places for curiosity during exploration mode with my clients revolves around the cultures they are navigating.

I’m also passionate about baseball, and it provides a lot of interesting insights into our national culture.

Baseball’s a slow game. I get that some people just don’t get why you’d want to watch a guy squint at another guy for ten seconds before deciding to play a game of catch with him. Frankly when it comes to watching sports on TV almost nothing is slower than football (though this accusation is seldom made), and soccer is faster than either baseball or football, while hockey is faster yet. What people say is slow really isn’t (soccer) and what people say is fast really isn’t (football) so it really just comes down to what you appreciate. I appreciate baseball, even if it doesn’t have the same breakneck action as hockey.

What’s happening now, the way the plates are shifting in the cultural geology, is that they’re trying to speed baseball up. MLB is discussing putting a man on 2nd base to begin any extra inning.

Here’s what I think: we have a culture where we’re always rushing to get one thing done asap so we can get to the next thing we have to do asap. Baseball has an opportunity to be a respite from that pace of life. Baseball never ends in a tie (that would be un-American!) but it doesn’t have a way to end the game after 13 innings, either. There’s no shoot-out like hockey and soccer have implemented after a regulation and over-time periods. There’s no “home run derby” to finish it off. You just keep playing. We all know that, of course. It’s not that I have a problem with specific rules changes like the no-pitch intentional walk  coming into play this year; in fact it’s not any specific rule change as such (Should the NL do away with pitchers batting?). My problem is with the shifting cultural assumption that we need this thing we call baseball to be faster.

As a culture we need some things to help us change up our pace (see what I did there?). The imbalance caused by taking in an activity, perhaps on a Sunday afternoon, when we don’t really know exactly when we’ll be home, is a healthy sort of imbalance. It allows us to break our normal routine of rushing, and sit back and enjoy what’s in front of us.

It’s very Taoist. It’s in the moment. The pitch comes, split second decision, swing or hold.

For everyone else, the past and future swirls around the players. It’s story-oriented; listen to the broadcasters talk about the way it used to be, remember the guy who used to sit behind the bullpen and eat six Chicago-style hot dogs every night? And of course the sports talk radio guys love to speculate about the future, who will trade for that guy before the deadline, who might win the division.

But the cultural aficionado understands that it’s about being in the moment. So it shouldn’t matter if the game is fast or slow, over in two hours or stretched out to seventeen innings.

We need to be aware of the way that our culture is shifting, in our business, or organization. If the culture shifts it’s because values are shifting, perhaps from the larger culture outside (as the larger culture is now influencing the micro-culture that baseball is.) And sometimes the push and pull that cultures outside the one you care about are exerting on your culture are worth resisting. So resist them! Culture eats strategy for breakfast — don’t assume that you don’t exert any control over what your culture looks like, or will become. If you need to be a purist for a certain value, stick to your guns.