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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2020
This essay aims to show that baseball's time-honored emphases on physical and spiritual discipline follow from its metaphysical imaginary. In turn, it will reason that Christian life and thought are capable of illuminating baseball—and vice versa. The argument will proceed as follows: First, both Christianity and baseball frame their worlds in terms of emanation (exitus) and return (reditus): “players” leave home and aim to return home; second, though players belong to a team or community (ecclesia), the task of returning home is ultimately a solitary one; it has to be done by the individual player, even if the team, too, benefits from the individual's undertaking; and third, the spiritual or attitudinal development of the individual is thus crucial: players have to attend to how they approach the “game,” particularly in terms of their internal comportment. This last point will receive special attention: it will be reasoned that Søren Kierkegaard's spiritual writings, tendered for the existential “upbuilding” (Opbyggelse) of “the single individual” (den Enkelte), might likewise offer upbuilding insights for the individuals who play baseball—a sport that John Updike once called “an essentially lonely game.”
1 This piece was later included in a collection of Hart's occasional writings: Hart, David Bentley, A Splendid Wickedness and Other Essays (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016), 44–51Google Scholar. It is worth adding that “The Perfect Game” is not Hart's only foray into baseball writing; also see his recent satirical editorial: “The New York Yankees Are a Moral Abomination,” New York Times, July 14, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/14/opinion/new-york-yankees-evil.html.
2 Hart, A Splendid Wickedness, 45.
3 Hart, A Splendid Wickedness, 44.
4 Hart, A Splendid Wickedness, 45.
5 Hart, A Splendid Wickedness.
6 Hart, A Splendid Wickedness.
7 Hart, A Splendid Wickedness, 47.
8 Hart, A Splendid Wickedness, 49.
9 Joseph F. Flipper, “The Beautiful Game: Soccer's Theological Virtues,” Commonweal, May 12, 2016, https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/beautiful-game.
10 Flipper, “The Beautiful Game: Soccer's Theological Virtues.”
11 John Sexton with Oliphant, Thomas and Schwartz, Peter J., Baseball as a Road to God: Seeing Beyond the Game (New York: Gotham Books, 2013), 211–12Google Scholar.
12 Here it is worth noting that this essay will focus almost exclusively on hitting, rather than on other facets of the game (e.g., pitching, fielding, baserunning, etc.). Perhaps this choice betrays an affinity for the modern version of the game, which, since the time of Babe Ruth, has tended to favor offense and, indeed, home runs. Nevertheless, the primary reason for concentrating on hitting is pragmatic: it would take a much longer work to explore how each aspect of baseball might be understood in theological terms. Secondarily, and as will be seen, it also happens that the role of the hitter best corresponds to the exitus-reditus framework explored in this piece, though pitchers, too, might benefit from Kierkegaard's spiritual insights. After all, pitching requires what H. A. Dorfman calls “gathering,” the process by which one takes “charge of oneself and one's circumstance” (Dorfman, H. A., The Mental ABC's of Pitching: A Handbook for Performance Enhancement [Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016], 119Google Scholar).
13 Updike, John, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu (New York: The Library of America, 2010), 14Google Scholar.
14 All quotations from the Bible are taken from the Authorized King James Version.
15 McGinn, Bernard, The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century, The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, vol. 1 (New York: Crossroad, 1991), 44Google Scholar.
16 Plotinus, “On Beauty,” in Neoplatonic Philosophy: Introductory Readings, eds. Dillon, John and Gerson, Lloyd P. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004), 26Google Scholar.
17 Plotinus, “On Beauty.”
18 Plotinus, “On Beauty.”
19 Plotinus, “On Beauty,” 27.
20 Plotinus, “On Beauty.”
21 See McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism, 55.
22 See especially Chenu, M.-D., “Le plan de la somme théologique de la Saint Thomas,” Revue Thomiste 47 (1939): 93–107Google Scholar.
23 Colledge, Edmund, OSA, and McGinn, Bernard, “Introduction,” in Meister Eckhart: The Essential, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense, The Classics of Western Spirituality (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1981), 30Google Scholar.
24 Colledge and McGinn, “Introduction,” in Meister Eckhart, 31.
25 Eckhart, Meister, “On Detachment,” in Meister Eckhart: The Essential, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense, The Classics of Western Spirituality (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1981), 291–92Google Scholar.
26 It is worth noting here that, in Christianity, one's reditus to God is not only or even primarily attributable to individual willpower; on the contrary, salvation is a gratuitous and transformative gift of the divine life (2 Cor 5:17-18). Nevertheless, in a number of Christian traditions, God's grace does not nullify human freedom but, rather, draws out humanity's capacity to cooperate with God's loving nature. It is in this latter sense that “self-discipline” and “self-denial” (see, e.g., Matt 19:21 and Luke 9:23) become central to Christian practice and, in turn, capable of being put in conversation with athletics. Indeed, Saint Paul was arguably the first to do so: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:7-8).
27 Newbery, John, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, Intended for the Instruction and Amusement of Little Master Tommy and Pretty Miss Polly (London: 1744)Google Scholar, not paginated.
28 Quoted in Telegraph staff and agencies, “Major League Baseball Told: Your Sport Is British, Not American,” The Telegraph, September 11, 2008, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/baseball/2799671/Major-League-Baseball-told-Your-sport-is-British-not-American.html.
29 Austen, Jane, Northanger Abbey (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 17Google Scholar.
30 A Society of Gentlemen, A General Dictionary of the English Language: Compiled with the Greatest Care from the Best Authors and Dictionaries Now Extant (London, 1768)Google Scholar.
31 Indeed, the notion that Abner Doubleday, a Civil War general from upstate New York, was the founder of baseball has now been thoroughly discredited. See, for example, Vecsey, George, Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game (New York: Modern Library, 2006), 39–49Google Scholar.
32 James, Bill, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (New York: Free Press, 2001), 8Google Scholar.
33 James, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, 8, 20.
34 Though it has proven controversial, particularly in modernity, speculative theology should not be seen as groundless or “made up.” As Matthias Scheeben puts it, “When [theology] takes the dogmas for granted, and penetrates into their nature and discovers their principles and consequences, it is designated Speculative Theology” (Wilhelm, Joseph and Scannell, Thomas B., eds., A Manual of Catholic Theology Based on Scheeben's “Dogmatik,” vol. 1 [New York: Benziger Brothers, 1899], xviiiGoogle Scholar).
35 See, above all, Bachelard, Gaston, The Poetics of Space, trans. Jolas, Maria (London: Penguin, 2014)Google Scholar.
36 Kraus, Joe, “‘There's No Place Like Home!,’” in Baseball and Philosophy: Thinking Outside the Batter's Box, ed. Bronson, Eric (Chicago: Open Court, 2004), 10Google Scholar.
37 Kraus, “‘There's No Place Like Home!.’”
38 See Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (New York: Pantheon, 1949)Google Scholar.
39 Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 23.
40 Will, George F., Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball (New York: Harper, 2010), 162Google Scholar.
41 Will, Men at Work, 164.
42 Williams, Ted (with John Underwood), The Science of Hitting (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), 29Google Scholar.
43 Dorfman, H. A. and Kuehl, Karl, The Mental Game of Baseball: A Guide to Peak Performance, 3rd ed. (Lanham, MD: Diamond Communications, 2002), 4Google Scholar.
44 Dorfman and Kuehl, The Mental Game of Baseball, 188.
45 Updike, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, 3.
46 Updike, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu.
47 Updike, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, 31.
48 Updike, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, 32.
49 Updike, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, 33.
50 Updike, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu.
51 James, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, 652.
52 Updike, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, 34.
53 Updike, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, 39.
54 In fact, Williams asked for a pay cut after the 1959 season, when he hit .254 across a mere 272 at-bats. It was “his only sub-.300 season.” Updike, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu.
55 Updike, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, 44.
56 Updike, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, 44.
57 Updike, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, 13–14.
58 See Bradlee, Ben Jr., The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2013)Google Scholar.
59 “Momentous Footage of Ted Williams's Final Home Run,” YouTube video, 2:07, posted by Smithsonian Channel, August 26, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?vBPy0ykNfews.
60 Williams, Rowan, The Wound of Knowledge: Christian Spirituality from the New Testament to Saint John of the Cross (Cambridge, MA: Cowley, 1990), 79Google Scholar.
61 Hankey, Wayne J., “Recurrens in te unum: Neoplatonic Form and Content in Augustine's Confessions,” in Augustine and Philosophy, eds. Cary, Phillip, Doody, John, and Paffenroth, Kim (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010), 127Google Scholar.
62 Hankey, “Recurrens in te unum,” 129.
63 Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal, Credo for Today: What Christians Believe, trans. Miller, Michael J., et al. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), 29, 31Google Scholar.
64 Ward, Benedicta, “Introduction,” in The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks, trans. Ward, Benedicta (London: Penguin Books, 2003), ixGoogle Scholar.
65 Ward, “Introduction,” in The Desert Fathers.
66 Ward, “Introduction,” in The Desert Fathers, x.
67 Tillich, Paul, The Eternal Now (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1963), 17Google Scholar.
68 See, for example, Barrett, Lee C., “Paul Tillich: An Ambivalent Appreciation,” in Kierkegaard's Influence on Theology. Tome I: German Protestant Theology, ed. Stewart, Jon (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 335–76Google Scholar.
69 It probably goes without saying that many other modern thinkers are well known for their individualistic bent, including proto-existentialists such as Friedrich Nietzsche and proponents of rational egoism such as the novelist Ayn Rand. What makes Kierkegaard crucial here is his status as an explicitly Christian thinker, who advocated for a particular kind of individualism—one that aligns with baseball. Whether one could say the same of a Nietzsche or a Rand is an open question, albeit one that outstrips the interests of the present essay.
70 Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter, vols. 1–28. Edited by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Johnny Kondrup, Karsten Kynde, Tonny Aagaard Olesen, and Steen Tullberg (Copenhagen: Gads Forlag, 1997–2013). Hereafter “SKS.” SKS 8, 135 / UDVS, 19.
71 SKS 8, 135 / UDVS, 20, my translation.
72 SKS 8, 135–36 / UDVS, 20–21.
73 Watkin, Julia, Historical Dictionary of Kierkegaard's Philosophy (Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2001), 59Google Scholar.
75 SKS 11, 129 / SUD, 13.
76 SKS 11, 130 / SUD, 13–14.
77 SKS 11, 130 / SUD, 14.
78 SKS 11, 129 / SUD, 13.
79 SKS 11, 145 / SUD, 29.
80 Evans, C. Stephen, Kierkegaard: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 174CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
81 SKS 11, 158 / SUD, 43.
82 SKS 11, 158 / SUD, 43.
83 SKS 11, 162 / SUD, 47.
84 SKS 11, 176 / SUD, 61.
85 SKS 11, 177-79 / SUD, 63–65.
86 SKS 11, 165 / SUD, 49.
87 SKS 11, 182 / SUD, 68.
88 SKS 11, 183 / SUD, 69.
89 SKS 11, 183 / SUD, 69.
90 SKS 11, 183 / SUD, 69.
91 Of course, the hitter need not be cognizant of the dugout's symbolic meaning and, as with Ted Williams, may even be an atheist. Nevertheless, the dugout remains the unitary ground out of which the multiplicity of players emerges. Thus, it functions in a manner akin to Anti-Climacus’ “establishing power,” serving as the teleological touchstone by which the hitter measures his performance.
92 Bassham, Gregory, “The Zen of Hitting,” in Baseball and Philosophy: Thinking Outside the Batter's Box, ed. Bronson, Eric (Chicago: Open Court, 2004), 205, 207Google Scholar.
93 Much like Augustine of Hippo, whose Confessions famously speaks of the human being's restless desire to rest in God, Kierkegaard views “rest” as the pinnacle of the spiritual life. He uses two different terms for “rest” [Hvile/Ro], but both connote one's assent to the origin and end of one's existence. For it is only in the “yes” of “faith” [Tro] that the self's constituent elements can be harmonized because, in faith, the human being accepts the necessary conditions of her existence as divinely willed while simultaneously remaining open to and trusting of God's infinite possibility. In The Sickness unto Death, Anti-Climacus describes this state of rest as “[being] grounded in a see-through manner” (grunder gjennemsigtigt). The person of faith, then, is always seeking the ground—a noteworthy connection to baseball that this essay has emphasized. I have written extensively on Kierkegaard's interest in the motif of “rest.” See Barnett, Christopher B., From Despair to Faith: The Spirituality of Søren Kierkegaard (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Barnett, Christopher B. “‘Rest’ as Unio Mystica?: Kierkegaard, Augustine, and the Spiritual Life,” Spiritus 16.1 (2016): 58–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
94 Price, Joseph L., Rounding the Bases: Baseball and Religion in America (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.
95 Sexton, Baseball as a Road to God, 219.
96 Sexton, Baseball as a Road to God, 220.
97 Sexton, Baseball as a Road to God.