AmericanSports represent a fabric of American culture. Sports act as a unifying factorbetween people of all ages. Of all the sports that America has to offer, baseballis considered the pastime of this country. Americans did not always regard baseball andother sports in such a benign manner. Rather, sports during the early colonialtimes were seen as pagan and devilish things to do. Many elite and wealthy gentrywho embodied the Victorian ideals regarded any type of games or sports as illvices. It was the common people who directly related sports to their religion. Ondays of religious celebration, early Americans joined together to play games. Thesefolk games were unstructured and unruly; however, the unity that these gamesbrought, created a need for professional sporting games. Folk games provided thefoundation of sports. They created sense of companionship and unison amongindividuals. These unorganized folk games created the threshold for organized sportsand led to the transformation of the players'roles and the role of the audience.Amateurs became professional athletes, and the game an organized business. Thegame of baseball evolved from the English game of cricket and rounders. It wasnot until the time of the Civil War that baseball began to be played frequently. Howeverwith the transformation of the nation, society and technology, folk games too beganto evolve into spectator sports. After the Civil War, baseball became a popularsport and no longer an archaic folk game. Structure and organizationwere introduced gradually into the game and increased public participation.The sport at first excluded the public, but as economic interests infiltrated thegame, the need for audiences and spectators arose. The audience of baseball wasinstrumental in the transformatic of baseball. The battling leagues and teamrivalries created a sector for the American public to participate in baseball The process ofthe transformation of American folk games into spectator games was due tocapitalism evolution of American society, urban settings, level of player performance,technological advances and the addition of structure and organization to the games:thus, transforming the sport of baseball into a monopolized and professionalbusiness. OrganizedBaseball and the Commission have propagated the myth that General AbnerDoublday invented the game of baseball. This was an attempt to make baseball anAmerican game. The Commission wanted to distinguish baseball as a trulyAmerican game that originated in Cooperstown, New York.
Americans regarded sports as evil things ______.
A、when amateurs became professional athletes
B、on days of religious celebration
C、during the early colonial days
D、during the Civil War
【正确答案】：C
