Baseball, first dubbed the “national pastime” in print in 1856, is the country’s most tradition-bound sport. Despite remaining popular and profitable into the 21st century, the game is losing young fans, among African Americans and women as well as white men. Furthermore, baseball’s greatest charm --- a clockless suspension of time --- is also its greatest liability in a culture of digital distraction. These paradoxes are explored by historian and passionate baseball fan Susan Jacoby in a book that is both a love letter to the game and a tough-minded analysis of the current challenges to its special position --- in reality and myth --- in American culture.