In the wake of my last anti-baseball screed for The Washington Post, I had vowed to never, ever address the subject of the so-called National Pastime again, if only for my own physical safety.
That solomonic contribution, modestly entitled “Baseball: Bad Sport, Bad Religion, National Security Threat,” gained me the acquaintance of legions of Crack(erJack) Heads who shared with me their thoughts on my sanity, patriotism, scholarly credentials, and bonds obtaining with my mother in childhood.
We’re sorry, something went wrong.
We are unable to fully display the content of this page.
This is most likely due to a content blocker on your computer or network.
Please allow access to our site and then refresh this page.
You may then be asked to log in, create an account (if you don't already have one),
or subscribe.
If you continue to experience issues, please contact us at 202-466-1032 or help@chronicle.com.
In the wake of my last anti-baseball screed for The Washington Post, I had vowed to never, ever address the subject of the so-called National Pastime again, if only for my own physical safety.
That solomonic contribution, modestly entitled “Baseball: Bad Sport, Bad Religion, National Security Threat,” gained me the acquaintance of legions of Crack(erJack) Heads who shared with me their thoughts on my sanity, patriotism, scholarly credentials, and bonds obtaining with my mother in childhood.
For three years I remained faithful to my vow. I withstood the annual spate of Baseball-Is-Tantamount-To-Life/Heidegger/Christ, Jesus pieces that trot out on Opening Day like so many infielders and portly coaches shambling to the mound for the crucial second-inning strategy summit on defensive bunt alignments. For three years I endured it all. I said not a word.
ADVERTISEMENT
And then this past week I snapped. Think of George Brett manically charging the field with his pine-tar covered hands flailing wildly. Think of that image in a Snow Globe. Shake the Snow Globe vigorously. The resultant turbulent mise en scéne approximates my state of psychic well-being.
It was Professor Jason Morgan’s “Baseball and the Soul” which made me balk convulsively. Part of my collapse had to do with the fact that it was published in First Things. I am a secularist, and as you may imagine my relation to this fine magazine of ideas has always been a bit strained.
Part of it also had to do with the fact that I initially thought “Baseball and the Soul” was the spoof of overheated baseball pundit prose that I had been waiting for. A line such as “Baseball can act as a conduit for the goodness of the Creator” seems, at first glance, to be the stuff of classic send-up, no?
“Baseball and the Soul” appeared to mock the insufferable clichés and overreaching analogies about baseball we hear all the time. You know the ones—they litter the dugout floor of American letters like so many discarded pistachio nut shells.
I was disabused of this illusion upon reading this paragraph, remarkable even by the helium-driven standards of baseball hagiography:
Baseball doesn’t care what color you are, or what shape or size, or how old or crippled or infirm. The essence of the game is written in our hearts—there is a deep etiological significance to this, if we would only stop to think about it for a little while. There is a reason that the Vikings imagined their heroes locked in eternal combat in Valhalla. It wasn’t because they were belligerent or bloodthirsty or deranged—no, far from it. It was because they knew that there is goodness in the striving. And it is on the baseball field that we remember this, and understand.
Etiological significance? Valhalla? Professor Morgan, this doesn’t even make sense! I fail to see how the poor Vikings get dragooned into this.
ADVERTISEMENT
My guess is that were Norse Marauders to glide one of their knarrs into San Francisco Bay and survey the “action” taking place as the Giants play they would ask pretty much the same question my hockey-playing son asked me when I took him to a Nationals game: “Daddy, why isn’t anyone moving?”
Why isn’t anyone moving indeed! With my vow broken, permit me to identify a few of the biggest self-serving falsities about baseball promulgated by our nation’s literary baseball homers. To my critics all I can say is catch me if you can and don’t choke on your chewin’ tobacco trying:
The absence of a clock makes baseball special: No, it makes baseball unwatchable. Baseball exists within the space of two foul lines, but outside of time as we understand it in the modern world.
Baseball is a preening, self-absorbed jerk that can’t begin to fathom that you might have things to do and places to go unrelated to baseball (MLB’s recent attempt to place a man in a cave on Broadway so he can watch all 2,430 games this season exemplifies the galling narcissism of the game).
Baseball athletes are elite athletes: They may indeed be. But we would never know that watching them play, let’s say, baseball.
ADVERTISEMENT
I can think of no sport that makes less use of its athletes’ natural abilities. With the exception of the pitcher and catcher every other member of the squad is consigned to wait (and not even “hurry-up-and-wait” because baseball, as we have already established, is oblivious to time).
Case in point. At the aforementioned Nationals game, I pointed out to my son that the right fielder had not had one ball hit to him in the first four innings. For the span of nearly two hours he had not done one thing except blow bubbles. He needn’t even have taken the field.
Seizing upon a teachable moment, I asked the boy what we might have stationed in his stead in right field during those two hours? Displaying the characteristic Berlinerblau wit he responded “a stapler.” Basketball players, quite literally, fly.
The average soccer midfielder runs between 3 and 7 miles per game. Have you ever seen the expression on a hockey player’s face as he completes his shift?It is a mixture of exhaustion and gratitude. After all, the shift is over.
A baseball player may on a few occasions in a game run 90 feet to first base. And then maybe—no!—270 feet more.
ADVERTISEMENT
The beauty of baseball is that it’s all about strategy, nuance: To which I say: “Right, right. Because no other sport has strategy and nuance. Only Baseball calls upon our cognitive faculties. Those football players lining up in veiled 4-3 defenses calling out blitz packages in the seconds before the snap as the quarterback audibles counter formations to prevent him from being pulverized by 700 pounds worth of Dude—they are all just a bunch of reject graduate students from Brown compared to the Harvard Fulls who scratch their unmentionables in the dugout as they take half an hour to figure out whether to throw a slider or a changeup or move the shortstop 6.5 inches toward left field.”
Baseball is spiritual, like religion: If your religion is about standing still like a Human Statue in some touristy spot in Paris then, yes, baseball is like religion. I, by contrast, prefer to think of the spiritual element of sports as being bound up with pain and exertion.
Does the third base coach exert himself? Unless he runs into a wall—which often enough he does—will the center-fielder experience pain?
Dear Prospective Commenters: In retrospect I acknowledge I should be sent to the penalty box for this post. I really crossed the line. But should you agitate me further the same metaphorical fate awaits you as the unfortunate fan depicted in this video:
Jacques Berlinerblau (jberlinerblau.com) is a professor of Jewish civilization at Georgetown University and an MSNBC columnist. He writes about political secularism, free-speech controversies in the arts, and American higher education. He is the author of numerous books, including Campus Confidential: How College Works, or Doesn’t, for Professors, Parents, and Students (Melville House). His forthcoming work is Can I Laugh at That? Global Comedic Controversies in the Digital Age (University of California Press).