What is there about American society that makes baseball America's "national pastime"?

History, tradition, and baseball's influence on American culture. Baseball's been referred to as our "national pastime" since before there was even "professional" baseball in the 1870s, and has been remarkably consistent in popularity for a very long time - of the most popular sports of the 1870s, baseball's the only one that's still on the short list of most popular sports today.