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The “Lonely Game”: Baseball, Kierkegaard, and the Spiritual Life
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2020
Abstract
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.”
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References
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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.
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