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Big History: A Homerun

Samantha Zeegers
7 December 2014
Dr. Kiowa Bower
Big History, FYE 2000, section 1

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Everybody knows baseball as Americas favorite pastime. Baseball came out of similar
games in the mid-1800s, such as cricket, and rounders. Americans preferred the new sport due
to its aggressive nature. Alexander Cartwright formulated the first set of rules for the game in
1845, which have evolved quite a lot throughout out the years. Baseball has continued to be a
part of the American life for almost 200 years. It can be seen through both World Wars, the
Great Depression, and the new Millennium; but can baseball be traced back even further than
that? How about as far back as the Big Bang itself?
Lets fly back in time about 13.7 billion years ago. Everything we know and everything
we do not know in the universe started as a tiny little ball smaller than the size of an atom. This
small space contained all the energy that exists in the universe today. Due to everything being
compressed so close together the area was extremely hot. In just a fraction of a second it
expanded into the size of a galaxy today. After the expansion four basic elements were created;
gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. If you look at the
making of a baseball you will notice that it starts off as a small round object, called the pill. And
expands through different processes to become what is used on Major League field today.
Another key component of any baseball game is gravity. Without this force any ball passed
between players would fly further than the expected target. And forget about singles, doubles, or
triples; every hitter would hit a homerun. That would make for a very boring game. The creation
of gravity during the Big Bang was very important to the development of baseball.
Once we skip a little further into the future, we can see the emergence of stars and
galaxies. The universe was continuously expanding in this time era and still continues to today.
Gravity was starting to have a greater pull on its surroundings. Where there happened to be
slightly more matter, gravity pulled more strongly, drawing those areas in on themselves

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(Christian, Brown, Benjamin) When matter is packed into smaller and smaller spaces it starts to
increase in temperature. The atoms, due to the heat, began to move more rapidly and the protons
began to collide so hard that they fused together. This fusion causes helium atoms to be created,
and as such the first stars are created. The fusion of helium in the cores of stars generates energy.
Energy is a very important factor in baseball. Baseball players need energy to throw a ball or to
slide into a base. Without the energy needed for these things the game would not have be able to
last longer than a couple innings.
If life started with just simple elements like helium, how do we have so many elements
today? This is where the stars come in to play. At the center of these stars is a ball of hydrogen
turning into helium. Things start to get interesting when these stars run out of fuel. Once the core
runs out of helium it collapses and temperature rises in order for carbon to create elements like
oxygen and silicon. This is best said by Cesare Emilianis description A star 25 times more
massive than the sun will exhaust the hydrogen in its core in a few million years, will burn
helium for half a million years, andas the core continues to contract and the temperature
continues to risewill burn carbon for 600 years, oxygen for 6 months, and silicon for 1 day.
This will repeat until the star runs out of iron, then the fusions will stop and the star will explode
in what is called a supernova. A second process called neutron capture allows for the formation
of much heavier elements. This is where nuclei capture stray neutrons, which decay to form
protons. As this process goes along it can form elements as heavy as bismuth. One of these
elements is carbon, whichalong with hydrogenmakes up the basis for the rubber that incases
the cork pill at the center of every baseball. The rubber in the center of every baseball allows for
the ball to have some bounce. The bounce allows for the ball to go further, by bouncing after
hitting the ground. Rubber is also used to make the baseball bases. There are five bases on any

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baseball field. Three of the bases are square and are called first, second, and third. One of the
bases is the home plate, which is pentagon shaped. The last base is the rectangular base on the
pitchers mound.
The most important starto usthat was created is our sun. In the early stages of our
atmosphere our suns gravitational pull was absorbing almost all the debris in our early solar
system. However some of the larger objects escaped the suns pull and became planetesimals.
These planetesimals were large enough to have their own gravitational pull, which lead them to
collide into one another. Most often this violent collision would cause the planetesimals to break
apart. But sometimes the collision would fuse the two objects together to create a larger object in
a process called accretion. This period was also the time in which the earth attained an
atmosphere. The earliest atmosphere was created by gases that had either bubbled up form
volcanoes or been brought to earth by comets (Christian, Brown, Benjamin). Later, singlecelled organisms living in the oceans would acquire the ability to photosynthesize and create
oxygen which would help create the atmosphere we have today. An atmosphere is an important,
over-looked factor in baseball. Can you imagine doing anything without it? This is also the time
that the earths crust was formed. This is the crust that will allow for baseball field to built and
players to run on.
Now that we have a home planet with an atmosphere and some oxygen we can begin to
have life. The earliest known life on our planet was prokaryotes, a single-celled organism with
no nucleus. The next step leading to the life we have today was mentioned earlier:
photosynthesis. Almost all life on Earth needs oxygen. Then we have the formation of
eukaryotes, which uses mitochondria to generate energy from oxygen. Life continues with
simple reproduction; prokaryotes can now split into two and create clones. During the Cambrian

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explosions eukaryotes gather together and become specialized. Soon the first organisms with
vertebrae appear. About 475 million years ago, these multi-celled organisms find their way to
land, which proves to be very difficult. And finally we make it to warm blooded mammals and
dinosaurs. One such mammal is the horse. In the earliest manufacturing of the baseball use horse
hide to cover the baseball. The Major League Baseball association changed the official balls
covering to cows hide, which became the perfect wrap for the baseball and is still used today. A
baseball is made up of the pill which was mentioned earlier. The pill is wrapped tightly by
wool, polyester, and cotton yarn. This yarn allows for the ball to bounce back into shape after
being hit by a metal bat at a hundred miles per hour. The yarn is covered by two figure 8 shaped
pieces of cowhide, which is stitched together with red stitching and allows for the ball to be
easier to hold.
The earliest known hominine species to appear, A. afarensis, became a popular subject
when anthropologists discovered the remains of one, which was named Lucy. I doubt Lucy was
playing any baseball when she was living but she was the first step in our line. Some others in
our line of evolution include H. Habilis, H. erectus, and H. ergaster. Although some of these
hominines did discover the use of tools, it is doubtful that the discovered any sort of circular
objects to play catch. Our closest relatives, the Neanderthals, are a different case. Their brains
had developed to about the size of ours and began to build more sophisticated tools. During this
time period, about a million years ago, this species might have created some form of sport to
entertain them. With the advancement in tools and other such things, the Neanderthals were most
likely able to put a little less focus on survival, and more on social interaction. Recently Clive
Finlayson from Gibraltar Museum in Spain discovered etching in the stone floor in a cave. The
etchings looked very close to our modern day game tic-tac-toe. Although it is possible that these

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are just idle doodles, there is no way to tell either way. This can show proof of past hominines
creating the first games which would eventually lead to sports, such as baseball.
About 10,000 years ago human culture changed drastically with the agricultural
revolution. This time period was called the Agrarian Era. During this time populations grew
much larger, societies became more complex, and collective learning increased. This was due to
one major change: foragers started to become farmers. They were able to find ways to extract
more energy from a given area. Not only were humans living closely with other humans but they
also began to love closely with animals. There was a good symbiosis between humans and
animals at this time. The humans were benefitting from the extra food, and the animals were
benefitting from the protection and easier reproduction. This symbiosis also occurred between
humans and plants. The plant evolved much during this time to become more useful to humans.
Cork trees were one sort of plant that began to be harvested. The cork is used to form the inner
most part of the baseball. Corks notable history began in the 5th century BCE with the Greeks
using it to cap their wine bottles. It disappeared from history until the late fifteenth century when
it again was used for wine. Eventually companies found other uses for cork, such as a small ball
at the base of a baseball.
Although baseball is considered Americas pastime, it has reached countries outside of
the United States. It has become a large part in the Netherlands, Taiwan, Japan, Cuba, and other
countries. It continues to battle with cricket in countries such as the United Kingdom and
Australia. It will continue to be a major sport around the world. During the Industrial Revolution
there was a rise in commerce and a breakdown of continental barriers. This allowed for not only
goods but cultures to be spread all around the world. When the British brought tea to America

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the crewmen also brought their love of cricket. This would later evolve in the US to become
baseball as we know it today.
Baseball is continuously changing. It will begin to evolve like all other things. It already
has started to embrace the technology era. Coaches can now challenge a call on a play, which
requires an umpire in New York watching the game on a TV to re-watch it at different angles
and make a call. The future is very bright for baseball. There has been an increase of interest in
baseball, especially as it travels through the world. Children are falling in love with baseball at a
very young age and this will continue for generations to come. Baseball will continue to grow
and become an even larger part of our everyday lives.
The official rules of baseball may have been created in the past 200 years, but we can still
trace its origins back through history all the way to the Big Bang. Through the creation of stars,
and elements, the solar system and our planet, we can find little pieces of baseball leading us to
where we are today. Our ancestors slowly starting to walk upright and gaining opposable thumbs
allowed us to gather the resources to create the best sport the world has ever seen.

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Works Cited
"Baseball." How Products Are Made. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2014.
Brahic, Catherine. "First Neanderthal Etching Is a #stoneagehashtag." New Scientist. N.p., 01
Sept. 2014. Web. 01 Dec. 2014.
Marcano, Guevara A. J, and David P. Fidler. Stealing Lives: The Globalization of Baseball and
the Tragic Story of Alexis Quiroz. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. Web. 01 Dec
2014.
Porter, David L. Baseball. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000. Web. 01 Dec. 2014.
Seymour, Harold. Baseball: The Early Years. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Web.
01 Dec. 2014.