Baseball As a Road to God addresses some aspects of the ineffability of faith by drawing comparisons between religion and baseball's colorful history and inscrutable rules. Explored are aspects of faith as variegated as sacred spaces, blessings and curses, and saints vs. sinners.

The book is larded with anecdotes. This Mets fan loved to see the story of the infamous scuffed ball of the '69 World Series told in the chapter, "Third Inning: Doubt." Orioles fans will know what I mean.

It's a little too compact in the theology it serves. The authors don't examine the seedier aspects of faith or fandom. There's little exploration of the fervor that strikes at the heart of both religion and baseball. An examination of the thin line between belief and zealotry might have made this book feel less pat. ( )

The author teaches a college class with the same title. He weaves in baseball stories with aspects of religion. I really enjoyed the baseball stories. Some of the religious discussions got a little tedious, but overall, the author made his point and the book was very enjoyable. ( )

I was excited to read this book when I heard the title, but disappointed by what it delivers. The stories were rather shallow at some distance from the idea of religiosity.

I love baseball, and am (like the author) a Catholic, so I expected to find many specific examples of how baseball presented opportunities for transcendence, or illustrations of the inexplicable violence of chance. Instead, I found a very poorly-argued collection of anecdotes and assertions along the lines of "sometimes there is just no easy answer" or "you just gotta believe."

I think this topic is worth exploring, and is still waiting for its book to be written. ( )

What I enjoyed most about this book was the baseball tales Sexton tells to illustrate the ways baseball fandom might just be a pathway to religious faith. Although himself a Catholic, a Brooklyn Dodger fan as a kid and a Yankee fan now, Sexton brings in stories and insights from other faiths and other teams. I enjoyed this book very much ( )

In high school, my best friend taught me the principle that anything worth talking about can be compared to baseball. For years, we've tested that theory and never to my recollection been stumped. In some ways, this book is an exercise at that game - baseball is social; religion is social. The circular, sacred time of the baseball season works the same way the religious festivals in the liturgical year do. Baseball fans bring their past to life in their stories, as do religious people. In Ebbetts Field or your place of worship (or both), as the song says, "you gotta have heart."

Let me start, then, with the positive. The stories are well spun. It's another book for the pile of "smart people reminisce about baseball," and it fits with the others. When Sexton describes praying for the Dodgers in '55, when he relates Mays' catch or Mazeroski's homer, you are there. When he talks about his family, his faith, his academic study of religion, too, you follow along easily. It's a book that's easy to enjoy, and I know many people who will.

So where does my dissatisfaction with this book come from? In part, because to me much of it is obvious. It's worth noting that this book comes out of an introductory-level course, and many of the ideas from Eliade and Tillich are presented at that basic level. Sadly for me, I spent a semester in college with a course called "the introduction to the study of religion", so I already knew of these ideas and saw them little expanded in this book. (I must say that the week spent with this book was infinitely preferable to that dreadfully boring semester.)

Like a textbook, this volume is rather thinly argued. The first and last chapters hold the actual thesis - that baseball calls us to an attentive, slowed-down worldview, a contemplative, focused state which we would do well to spill into the rest of our lives, in the way religion does. You'll get no argument from me. In between, there are plenty of examples which draw out the comparison, but they ramble like hot stove discussions (and coffeshop theology) ramble, without really bolstering the point.

Perhaps my problem is that I was seeking too hard in this book, looking too critically for a sublime experience connecting baseball and faith. I think people who are more able to meet the book on its own terms will have a better reading experience.

Edit: I recommended this book to a friend, and he devoured it. Bumping my rating a half-star, because this confirms that there's something valuable here, even if I'm not the target audience. ( )