I’ve just come back from a trip across the United States of America, to finish off four years of studying, interspersed (and sometimes obscured by) staying awake to the early hours. Those late nights and bleary-eyed mornings were the result of love affairs – with the National Football League and the National Basketball Association.

Showing at least a passing interest in the NFL and NBA is not at all uncommon in Britain, but my dedication to it certainly was. As soon as I realised that there was nothing making me get out of bed to go to lectures, I committed full-force to learning and enjoying the games. Watching the first quarter of a dead rubber between the Oakland Raiders and the then San Diego Chargers that began at 1am on Christmas morning was a high/low point, depending on your point of view. As these two sports are fast paced and action intensive, I could tell that people understood my enjoyment. The games take double the time of an association football or rugby match, sure, but at least something meaningful is usually happening when the play clock is going. Baseball, on the other hand, is famed for the opposite. I had a team (the Giants, who I do still follow) but it took intense levels of procrastination for me to ever view one of their games.

You would think, perhaps, that the timing of our trip was wrong. While we caught the tail end of the basketball (and ice hockey, something I also periodically engage with) seasons, we never had a chance to get a ticket for those games. The one option for myself and my sport mad friends was baseball (unless you include Major League Soccer – but with Wolves as good as they are right now this would definitely have been a downgrade).

We went to four games, and I can and will rave about the experience. The atmosphere is akin to cricket, but with baseball you don’t really have to concentrate to enjoy it. The game goes slowly, and there are relatively few flash points in a game, sure. All that contributes to something that suits summer down to the ground. The game and scoring effectively rotates, so you know when to look up for some action. A home run can come from nowhere, but the crowd will inform you that it’s in the air, and you’ll have time to zero in on the ball as it flies over the fence. The US sporting summer is long and frustrating, but going to a Major League ballpark is evidence that you’re at a serious sporting fixture. There will be 20,000 other people almost certainly, and there is a vibe, and almost a glamour that makes you know you’re at an event that’s worthwhile. It’s a perfect drinking scenario, even at $12 a pint, and the frightful cost of beer can, if you go to the right place, be made up by the cheap entrance fee. We watched the Seattle Mariners, on a Sunday, for $11.

Baseball is also different from other sports in that it lacks sterility or uniformity. The NBA and the NFL are now mostly played in stadiums or arenas made from almost the same blueprint, with minimal difference from one venue to the next. This corporate, faceless setting has crept into Premier League football recently too – baseball is a sport staunchly opposing an over-modernisation that would completely erode away its history. Every stadium has its own features to alter the way the game is played, and offers a huge visual distinction that makes visiting as many venues as possible a worthwhile and enjoyable exercise. Fenway Park in Boston, built in 1912 and barely altered since, is a prime example. It boasts battered wooden seats that make you feel like you’ve gone back in time. There is the Green Monster, a huge wall in left field that smacks theball back into play when in any other stadium it would be a home run. There is ‘the Triangle’ an area where three sections of seating come together, leaving a small additional area of the field for hitters to reach, giving them a unique chance to reach extra bases. AT&T Park, where my San Francisco Giants play, has a similar feature, a kink and the brick wall, meaning that the bounce of the ball is impossible to predict for fielders. Giants fans call it ‘Triple Alley’ – and it was intentionally built that way. Even newer stadiums (AT&T was opened in 2000) seek to preserve the individuality, history and culture of their teams. This is something that other major sports have forgotten.

Visiting Fenway Park was like going to a museum, except the exhibits came alive and performed in front of you. For a Brit, I know a decent amount baseball. Compared to the patrons at Fenway however, I was an absolute rookie, and that didn’t matter. You go to Fenway Park, as you can a number of different stadiums, and you instantly understand why people love the ballpark, and their team. There will be panels, explaining why certain parts of the stadium are particularly notable, there will occasionally be remnants of stadiums past, fittings or pieces of equipment that give insight in to what happened to these teams in years gone by. You’ll sit among the quiet, comforting buzz of the crowd, fully able to drink in your surroundings, punctuated by a crescendo of noise on a full count or a run. You’ll be able to watch a game that has been played since the Victorian era, and has barely changed in that time. It’s a game clinging on to the fact that it was once deeply embedded in the American psyche, and arguably is today. It is special for that reason.