Baseball is back! And so are the swaggering big-market teams.

Your guide to the 2017 MLB season

The Dodger's star shortstop Corey Seager.
(Image credit: Harry How/Getty Images)

Baseball could not have returned at a more propitious moment for the American psyche.

The rhythm of baseball is almost like therapy in an age of twitchy digital addicts and 24-7 mutual surveillance across social media. There's something restorative in the sounds of the ball pounding into a leather glove being heard clearly within a cavern of 45,000 spectators. It's like the bell of a monastery. Here is a kind of refuge from what America looks like on our screens. Here are older rivalries that enliven, not enervate, our spirits. Instead of hoarding our attention in order to divide it, baseball proffers us a way to focus again, which in our age feels like relaxation.

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Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is the founder and editor of The Slurve, a newsletter about baseball. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, ESPN Magazine, Slate and The American Conservative.