The infield-fly rule, like the Senate filibuster, reflects the conservative impulse.
As the ‘20s roared, Babe Ruth roared with them, remaking baseball and solidifying the game as America’s Pastime. After the war, Jackie Robinson broke the big leagues’ color barrier and ushered in the modern civil-rights movement. Inflated stocks and inflated home-run numbers defined the late ‘90s before 9/11, Iraq, and the BALCO scandal brought America and baseball back to Earth.
For more than a century, baseball has been a bellwether for the country as a whole: baseball's history is America’s history. At a more granular level, baseball’s idiosyncrasies offer parallels to politics in Washington. Consider baseball’s infield-fly rule and the U.S. Senate filibuster, both of which were developed well after the founding of their respective institutions in response to what were seen as abuses of the system.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The American Conservative
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Jordan McGillis is a Paulson Policy Analyst at the Manhattan Institute.
This piece originally appeared in The American Conservative