From sandboxes to fifty-thousand-seat stadiums, the game of baseball has provided people of all ages with common ground; a sport that we can all call our national pastime. Although its concept seems simple, a game using a ball and a bat, millions of people around the world have tried to participate in it by playing at some level or simply sitting down and watching a game. As professional baseball attracts more and more fans each season, no one knows what limits the sport can reach. For the moment, however, it was a real "home run". Like any other sport, baseball has developed over a long period of time dating back to the 1600s. The earliest evidence of the sport was a game called rounders, which was played in England (Lewine 27). Players hit the ball with a bat, which parallels today's game, but the big difference was the method by which the defense threw out runners. Similar to the dodge, an infielder or outfielder had to throw the ball to the runners. If the ball hit a runner who was off base, he was put out. This formula was called plugging and soon after its popularity ceased, as did that of the game (29). Shortly thereafter a transition occurred and the name rounders changed to Town Ball and then to Massachusetts's Game, and finally the name Baseball, developed by American colonists, remained. The rules changed over the period as the names changed, such as the number of players, distance between bases, and so on. Around 1840, Americans consolidated the rules and rounders became baseball. Even with the evidence that baseball developed from rounders, it is believed that a United States Army general named AbnerDoubleday invented the sport in Cooperstown, New York, current site of the Hall of Fame (30). After much controversy, sporting goods manufacturer and baseball player Albert Spalding decided to have a commission decide who originated the game. In 1908, the commission credited Doubleday with creating the game and it was based on a letter from AbnerGraves, a friend of Doubleday. In this document, Graves claimed to have been present as Doubleday conceptualized the game in 1839 (30). As a result of this decision, research by historians concluded that Doubleday had little to do with the discovery of baseball and his friend Graves described having inserted the letter, being a vital element in rou...... half of paper.... ..a record for 38 years until these two men hit 70 and 66 home runs respectively. Can this momentous record predict what professional baseball players will have to offer us in the future? Well, we can safely assume that baseball in the new millennium will only bring us the same excitement it has for the last hundred years or so. After all, it is still considered our national pastime. For centuries, baseball has changed dramatically, whether it be players, teams, records, and everything in between. While all things change, and as it is stated “the only thing constant is change,” one thing has remained the same throughout its lifetime as one of the major sports (McCarver 209). It brought people together for better or for worse, and for this reason it was coined as a national pastime. You can find thousands of kids every Saturday during the spring at little league games. You can see a stickball game going on at a local park. You can also sit in an air-conditioned room in front of the television watching the "Game of the Week". With the millions of people involved in baseball in one way or another, it's no wonder why it's called our national pastime.