by Walt Whitman
Baseball is the hurrah game of the republic!
That’s beautiful: the hurrah game!
well—it’s our game:
that’s the chief fact in connection with it:
America’s game:
has the snap, go, fling, of the American atmosphere
belongs as much to our institutions,
fits into them as significantly,
as our constitutions, laws:
is just as important
in the sum total of our historic life.