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Baseball and Philosophy : Thinking Outside the Batter's Box by Eric Bronson
Baseball and Philosophy presents thirty-one talented professional thinkers who have found wisdom in and through baseball. Each one is asked to turn their penetrating gaze on many unique topics:
Is the Intententional Walk unethical?
Can superstition help you play better?
Do Cubs fans teach us about religious faith?
Does chance decide who wins the World Series?
Whiy is Baseball the only industry exempt from antitrust laws?
What should the U.S. Supreme Cour learn from umpiring ball games?
Eric Bronson, who heads the Philosophy and History Department at Berkeley College in New York City, takes the reader into a philosophical treatment of the great American institution of baseball — and its fascinating and fun!
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"Baseball and Philosophy makes you realize just how much fun thinking about baseball really is. These snappy essays by noted philosophers cover everything from the strike zone to the steroid zone, corked bats to black cats, basepath Kant to pine tar cant. Ninety percent of baseball, as a great philosopher once said, is fifty percent mental. He was wrong; it's much more than that. Here's proof!" - Columnist Rick Telander in the Chicago Sun Times
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| Book Description |
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William Irwin has taken philosophy out of the academy and put it on the bestseller list. The series has been featured in The New York Times and People, and on NPR's All Things Considered. Now philosophy finds its real home - in the dugout. In Baseball and Philosophy, thirty-one professors ? some from the new field devoted to the philosophy of sport, others unapologetic baseball fans ? explore the sport's deeper aspects. How can Zen be applied to hitting? Do you play to win or play by the rules? Is it ethical to employ deception in sports? Can a game be defined by its written rules or are there also other constraints? What can the U.S. Supreme Court learn from umpiring? Why should baseball be the only industry exempt from antitrust laws? These are some of the questions addressed in this witty, provocative blend of two major American pastimes: watching baseball and thinking about it.
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| Editorial Reviews |
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From Booklist: "Put Sammy Sosa and Socrates into the same dugout, and soon the two are hotly debating whether batting against a flame-throwing pitcher fosters self-knowledge. Heavy hitters and deep thinkers do indeed tangle in this provocative and entertaining addition to the Popular Culture and Philosophy series. We learn, for instance, how in his famous .400 season of 1941, Ted Williams enacted the drama of a Socratic elanchos as he confronted the risk of failure through his very last at-bat. We learn, too, how Gaylord Perry violated the ethical imperatives of Kant by throwing spitballs, yet may still have satisfied the more elastic moral demands of Aristotle. The contributors view baseball from widely divergent perspectives, social to metaphysical, but most leaven their philosophical pondering with a puckish irreverence that allows Yogi Berra to translate St. Augustine and that asks Kierkegaard to lay down a bunt. And all of the contributors share an infectious love for a game inviting commentary that transcends sports cliche."
From Library Journal: "Although a complexity of possibilities overhangs each play in this seemingly simple game, this is the first collection in memory to put the philosophy front and center, with contributions on all philosophical elements about this activity where the brainy meets the spiritual: 'Taking One for the Team: Baseball and Sacrifice'; 'Would Kant Cork His Bat?'; 'Baseball and Political Philosophy: Does A-Rod Deserve so Much Money?'; and a closing argument over which is the greatest baseball movie."
From Jonathan Daly of Baseball Primer: "To put this into baseball terms, think of Baseball and Philosophy as a literary equivalent of Joe Carter: a good player who had some great moments but didn?t make the Hall of Fame."
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| Excerpt from
Baseball and Philosophy :
Thinking Outside the Batter's Box |
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Pre-Game Warm-up:
Who's on First?
Baseball has always been a thinking person's game. Just ask the wise philosophers, Abbot and Costello.
Their baseball dream team featured "Who" at first base, "What" at second base, and "Why" out in left field. That's a formidable lineuup when you stop and think about it. If any of us could keep track of the Whos, Whats, and Whys in our lives, our daily grind would be a whole lot easier to bear. Poor Costello, though, never could seem to get it right, and most of the time, we can't either. "Who" are we? "What" should we do? "Why" are we here? Throw in "I Don't Know" at third base and you have the foundation for some of the most perplexing philosophical discussions throughout the ages, all on the field at the same time. Can you blame Costello for not getting it straight?
Played without time limits, baseball encourages its participants to pause and think. There is time enough for infield shifts, meetings at the mound, phone calls to the bullpen, and time in between for armchair managing. It's not unusual for St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa to don his reading glasses during the game, as he pours over the latest statistics. Or, think of cerebral Greg Maddux (a.k.a. "the Professor"), shaking off sign after sign as he paints the corners with off-speed pitchest.
Copyright ? 2003 Eric Bronson
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