Baseball and Philosophy: Thinking Outside the Batter's Box

✍ Scribed by Eric Bronson; William Irwin

• Publisher: Open Court
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 365
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Baseball and Philosophy brings together two high-powered pastimes: the sport of baseball and the academic discipline of philosophy. Eric Bronson asked eighteen young professors to provide their profound analysis of some aspect of baseball. The result offers surprisingly deep insights into this most American of games. The contributors include many of the leading voices in the burgeoning new field of philosophy of sport, plus a few other talented philosophers with a personal interest in baseball. A few of the contributors are also drawn from academic areas outside philosophy: statistics, law, and history. This volume gives the thoughtful baseball fan substancial material to think more deeply about. What moral issues are raised by the Intentional Walk? Do teams sometimes benefit from the self-interested behavior of their individual members? How can Zen be applied to hitting? 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? What part does luck play in any game of skill?

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Pre-Game Warm-up: Who’s on First?
First Inning: Hometown Heroes
1 “There’s No Place Like Home!”
2 Minnesota’s “Homer Hanky Jurisprudence”: Contraction, Ethics, and the Twins
Second Inning: You Gotta Believe!
3 Should Cubs Fans Be Committed? What Bleacher Bums Have to Teach Us about the Nature of Faith
4 Taking One for the Team: Baseball and Sacrifice
Third Inning: The Umpire’s NewClothes
5 There Are No Ties at First Base
6 Taking Umpiring Seriously: How Philosophy Can Help Umpires Make the Right Calls
Fourth Inning: Fair or Foul?
7 Baseball, Cheating, and Tradition: Would Kant Cork His Bat?
8 There’s No Lying In Baseball (Wink, Wink)
Fifth Inning: Baseball and America
9 Democracy and Dissent: Why America Needs Reggie Jackson
10 Baseball and the Search for an American Moral Identity
Sixth Inning: Where Have You Gone, Jackie Robinson?
11 The Negro Leagues and the Contradictions of Social Darwinism
12 We’re American Too: The Negro Leagues and the Philosophy of Resistance
Seventh Inning: The Japanese National Pastime?
13 The Zen of Hitting
14 Japanese Baseball and Its Warrior Ways?
Eighth Inning: Behind in the Count
15 The Numbers Game: What Fans Should Know about the Stats They Love
16 Women Playing Hardball
Ninth Inning: Under Pressure
17 Walking Barry Bonds: The Ethics of the Intentional Walk
18 Socrates at the Ballpark
Post-Game Press Conference
19 Baseball and Ethics
19a Should Pete Rose Be in the Hall of Fame? YES
19b Should Pete Rose Be in the Hall of Fame? NO
20 Baseball and Political Philosophy
20a Does A-Rod Deserve So Much Money? YES
20b Does A-Rod Deserve So Much Money? NO
21 Baseball and Metaphysics
21a Does Superstition Help Performance? YES
21b Does Superstition Help Performance? NO
22 Baseball and Legal Philosophy
22a Should Steroids Be Banned? YES
22b Should Steroids Be Banned? NO
23 Baseball and Aesthetics
23a What’s the Best Baseball Movie? The Natural (1984)
23b What’s the Best Baseball Movie? It Happens Every Spring (1949)
24 Baseball and Education
24a Were Baseball Players Better Role Models Then or Now? THEN
24b Were Baseball Players Better Role Models Then or Now? NOW
The Team
Index