What is the Connection Between American Law and American Baseball?
Americans are viewed as peculiarly legalistic people all over the world. The USA leads the world in the production of the best lawyers and litigation. American people typically use courts to resolve their private issues as well as public problems. The central political document in the United States is a Constitution, to which they turn to resolve all disputes. The US people turn to lawyers and judges extremely often as this is a part of their culture. Even though there are a plethora of jokes about lawyers, law practice is considered a key to the political and economic success of the US. As a nation, Americans demonstrate great respect for professionals trained in the law.
The same can be said about the approach to law in the United Kingdom. The legal system in the UK functions quite well to uphold fairness in society. British laws ensure people receive justice in case they get a victim of crime. Also, criminals always get relevant penalties for their wrong-doings. The legal system functions very well in all life spheres of the UK, even when it comes to sports. Everybody must know the essential laws of the country of their residence to avoid potential problems. Therefore, students are typically taught that at schools and universities. A common task given to them by educators is an essay. This type of assignment often turns out to be quite challenging. Therefore, British students may need essay writing help from Writix which is the best essay writing service in the UK. To get an in-depth understanding of the legal system, one should properly study all the materials provided by educators. The justice system in the UK is constantly transforming to keep up with society. Therefore, if one has problems trying to catch up with those changes, they can ask online resources for law essay help and get more insights on this topic.
Getting back to the USA, let’s have a look at the relationship between its justice system and sports, particularly baseball as it’s the most popular game in the country.
Anybody would agree that baseball is a highly legalistic game since it has an elaborate set of rules. Moreover, at the professional level baseball requires a highly trained multi-judge panel of umpires that ensure the implementation and interpretation of the rules. Every pitch requires a legal ruling and umpires must decide whether it is fair all the time. Quite similar to a justice system where every action must be considered as legal or banned, isn’t it? Hence, let’s see in detail what else baseball and law have in common.
Timing
Unlike other sports, where setting time plays a crucial role, baseball is similar to a legal case since it is not restricted by arbitrary notions of time and has a unique pace. Both in the court and on the field, each side gets to present its position, however, in baseball it happens nine times or more. The baseball game continues until both sides have had their say, which is similar to a trial. Moreover, both of them can go into extra innings.
Ethics
As Americans learn from childhood to respect the rules, we can see them in action in any sphere. Canons of ethics that can lead to disciplinary sanctions are also common for both American law and a baseball game. This concept is absolutely the same and means that breaking the ethical rules doesn’t permit to play or practice no longer. For both, punishment may be so severe that it includes permanent disbarment or banishment.
Experience over logic
They say, the rules of baseball have evolved like the common law and represent themselves not so much the result of logic as experience. For instance, there is no logical reason for the infield fly rule or the ground rule double because they developed out of experience like the common law. Moreover, the rules on fan interference with a ball in play are definitely not a result of logic as well.
Experience trumps logic even when it comes to the distance in baseball. Although it may seem that ninety feet distance makes no sense (why not an even hundred?), experience shows that it works. Any longer distance would offer the fielder an advantage, while any shorter one could unfairly help the base runner. As you see, experience rather than logic led to making rules in baseball.
The possibility to appeal
Similarly to the court system, one has a chance to appeal in baseball. However, appealing has a short statute of some final limitations.
Personality impact
Likely to the law jurists, the umpires shape a baseball game not only according to the written rules but somehow with their own spin on the statutes. Have you noticed that some judges are known as hard sentencers, whereas others are considered more lenient? It works this way with some umpires too.
The same way as some judges may allow great leeway in the antics of attorneys or be quicker to threaten (or even issue) a contempt citation, some umpires allow greater flexibility than others before sending a player to the dugout.
Folk heroes
Baseball as well as a legal culture have their popular folk heroes who are outlaws. Fans often love pitchers known for their spitballs, even though they are obviously violating both the spirit and the letter of the law.
To sum up, baseball can teach deep respect for restrictions as no other game since it has so many complicated rules.
Author’s BIO
Vendy Adams is an academic tutor and a big baseball fan. He teaches Law at college and believes that one of the best ways to explain its principles is by using sports regulations. Vendy considers baseball a perfect game for teaching students about rules and restrictions.