We are excited to offer in the next issue of First Things an essay by the baseball player turned theologian David Bentley Hart on the metaphysics of baseball. If baseball does indeed possess metaphysical qualities, one wonders whether the perfect game stolen yesterday from Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga by a blown call with two outs in the bottom of the ninth reintroduces the problem of theodicy.
Thursday, June 3, 2010, 11:10 AM
June 3rd, 2010 | 8:07 pm
It’s the bottom of the ninth in Game 7 of the World Series. The home team, the Cleveland Indians, are down by three runs but have the bases loaded with two out. The count on the batter is full. He hits a towering home run, 480 feet, over the center-field fence. The umpire calls it strike three. Which raises a philosophical question: Which is the real game, the one you saw with your own lying eyes (empiricism) or the one the umpire called (umpirism)?
I look forward to the article by David Bentley Hart.
June 6th, 2010 | 6:35 pm
Before the home-plate umpire can leave the field, he is mauled by hundreds of home-town fans and when police finally move the mob away from him, he is dead. Too late for him to change his call, too late for anything to be done according to baseball rules. No one among the hundreds of fans is arrested. No way to blame anyone, even with cameras aimed at the memee. Justice has been served, but in a very weird way. Better than giving the batter a new car?
June 8th, 2010 | 3:41 pm
Zane: In Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium, true. But remember, this takes place at Progressive Field in Cleveland, where the general politeness level is too high to support anything like an entire mob mauling the umpire.
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