Our ancestors had to learn to trust their neighbors, and the seeds of our mutuality can be seen in our simplest gestures, like the willingness to point out a hidden object to another, as even toddlers will do. Early humans also needed ways to control would-be bullies, and our exceptional pitching skills — which researchers speculate originally arose to help us ward off predators — probably helped. “We can throw much better than any other primate,” Dr. Wilson said, “and once we could throw things at a distance, all of a sudden the alpha male is vulnerable to being dispatched with stones. Stoning might have been one of our first adaptations.”

– Natalie Angier, N.Y. Times.

Interesting. Back in college when I used to engage people in stupid pseudo-philosophical debates just for the sake of it, I often contended that baseball was the most civilized major sport because it was the one that least resembled a battle. I don’t really remember the particulars now — it was stupid, like I said.

But it turns out maybe baseball is some weird extension of a primal urge to cast off the alpha male from society by throwing stones at him, and the alpha male’s attempts to fend off those stones with a stick. Or something.

Good news is it doesn’t really matter how we came to baseball, only that we did. The rest of the Times article is pretty interesting too.