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Hi Everyone,

Did you enjoy your July 4th weekend? Did it include fireworks, barbecue, or maybe some baseball? I have a reason for asking this! I’m writing a new romance series about “America’s pastime,” and it occurred to me I wasn’t sure how baseball acquired that label.

I always assumed it came from being the nation’s favorite sport, but that’s debatable these days. Football draws much bigger TV audiences and revenue. So I checked with my close friend, Google, and discovered that it’s not quite what I thought.

Yes, back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, baseball was the most popular sport. But that was before TV, before the Internet, before video games and so many of the ways we entertain ourselves nowadays. When kids came home from school, they didn’t turn on the TV. They ran outside and played baseball in the streets or in fields. Baseball was how people spent their time. It was a topic that everyone could talk about with coworkers, strangers on the bus, neighbors -- a unifying bond, even between fans of rival teams. It truly was a big part of how Americans spent their leisure time. That’s why the term “America’s pastime” caught on.

Baseball was more than a sport, it was part of what wove America together.

But that was back then … what about now? Can baseball still be considered America’s pastime? Or has it been replaced with “Surfing the Web” or “Netflix” or “Farmville”?

I don’t know the answer to that, but here are a few random facts: 

“Take Me Out to the Ballgame” is the third most frequently sung song in America, after Happy Birthday and The Star-Spangled Banner.

73,739,622tickets were sold for Major League baseball games in 2014. That means a LOT of people actually left their TV’s or computers and went to a ballpark to see a game live. Baseball, unlike so much of our other entertainment, is something to be experienced in person rather than on a screen.

All of Minor League Baseball’s top 10 attendance years have been in the last decade. I’m including this fact because my series, LOVE BETWEEN THE BASES, is about a Triple A team from Texas, and I love seeing how popular Minor League Baseball is becoming. It’s just as competitive as the Majors, but more fun and less high-stakes. And a blast to write about.

ALL OF ME is the first book in this new series:

You can read the first chapter of ALL OF ME on my website.

So what do you think? Does America still have an “America’s pastime,” or is our culture too fragmented these days? I have an e-copy of ALL OF ME to give to one commenter today!