As the Major League baseball regular season calendar erodes for some and turns to an unfinished fairy tale for others, one thing is for certain: This is America’s game. From the pine tar-covered helmets to the hunt for October, baseball oozes red, white and blue from every pore.

Year after year, baseball proves that nothing is over until the fat lady sings, that it is the size of the fight in the dog and not the size of the dog in the fight and that, even for a Royals fan, anything can happen.

But ultimately there is one thing that baseball can do like no other sport; baseball can turn any man into a little boy in a moment’s notice.

Look around the stands the next time you find yourself near a diamond.

Drink in the environment, absorb the transitions between excitement and silence, get yourself a beer (if of age) and some peanuts, and tell me there is another picture of sport that seems more complete — the tension with every pitch, the one guy down front trying to start the wave, all the factors that lead to an experience that soon becomes addictive.

Nothing else can offer that simplistic aura, that nostalgic feeling; nothing can take you back like a baseball game.

This game is a teacher; it is a student; and if nothing else, it is full of superstition, but the game creates avenues to learn some of the most basic life lessons.

·Perseverance: shown year after year by the bottom-of-the barrel team that magically takes the league by storm and contends when they had no business doing so.

·Hard work: made evident by the players who could be defined as anything but athletic and who somehow find a way to become a somebody in the sport.

·Family: a family brought together by the love of a game, for the love of a team or just for the culmination of a dream season, a World Series Championship.

Fathers and sons, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters — baseball allows for connection. In fact, it encourages it. Try it — go up to the fence and yell at the right fielder. Better yet, go to the bullpen and accost the catcher for a ball. Either way, a warming response is certain.

As we enter the playoffs, the games only intensify. And unlike the other mainstream sport in this country— football, that is— the pageantry baseball provides is unparalleled. That can lead passionate viewers to the verge of cardiac arrest, but honestly, would you want it any other way?