Baseball as a Road to God
Seeing Beyond the Game
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Baseball as a Road to God
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Narrated by:
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Christopher Lane
About this listen
A love letter to America’s most beloved sport and an exploration of the deeper dimensions it reveals
For more than a decade, New York University president John Sexton has used baseball to illustrate the elements of a spiritual life in a wildly popular course at NYU. Using great works of baseball literature as well as the actual game’s fantastic moments, its legendary characters, and its routine rituals - from the long-sought triumph of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers to the heroic achievements of players like the saintly Christy Mathewson and the sinful Ty Cobb to the loving intimacy of a game of catch between a father and son - Sexton teaches that through the game we can touch the spiritual dimensions of life.
Baseball as a Road to God is about the elements of our lives that lie beyond what can be captured in words alone - ineffable truths that we know by experience rather than by logic or analysis. Applying the inquiry usually reserved for the study of religion to the secular activity of baseball, Sexton reveals a surprising amount of common ground between the game and what we all recognize as religion: sacred places and times, faith and doubt, blessings and curses, and more.
In thought-provoking, beautifully rendered prose, Baseball as a Road to God elegantly demonstrates that baseball is more than a game or even a national pastime: It can be a road to a deeper and more meaningful life.
©2013 John Sexton (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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- The Collision of the Turbulent Sixties and the Los Angeles Dodgers
- By: Michael Leahy
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story5 out of 5 stars 42
Legendary Dodgers Maury Wills, Sandy Koufax, Wes Parker, Jeff Torborg, Dick Tracewski, and Tommy Davis encapsulated 1960s America: white and black, Jewish and Christian, wealthy and working class, pro-Vietnam and anti-war, golden boy and seasoned veteran. The Last Innocents is a thoughtful, technicolor portrait of these seven players - friends, mentors, confidants, rivals, and allies - and their storied team that offers an intriguing look at a sport and a nation in transition.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Reliving my youth
- By PJ on 05-24-17
By: Michael Leahy
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Summer of '68
- The Season That Changed Baseball - and America - Forever
- By: Tim Wendel
- Narrated by: Mark Ashby
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
From the beginning, ’68 was a season rocked by national tragedy and sweeping change. Opening Day was postponed and later played in the shadow of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s funeral. That summer, as the pennant races were heating up, the assassination of Robert Kennedy was later followed by rioting at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. But even as tensions boiled over and violence spilled into the streets, something remarkable was happening in major league ballparks across the country. Pitchers were dominating like never before, and with records falling and shut-outs mounting, many began hailing ’68 as “The Year of the Pitcher".
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5 out of 5 stars
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Detroit Upsets St. Louis in 1968 World Series.
- By Matthew Tsien on 05-01-18
By: Tim Wendel
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The Year of the Pitcher
- Bob Gibson, Denny McLain, and the End of Baseball’s Golden Age
- By: Sridhar Pappu
- Narrated by: Leon Nixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
The Year of the Pitcher is the story of the remarkable 1968 baseball season, which culminated in one of the greatest World Series contests ever, with the Detroit Tigers coming back from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Cardinals in Game Seven of the World Series. In 1968, two remarkable pitchers would dominate the game as well as the broadsheets. One was black, the other white. Bob Gibson, together with the St. Louis Cardinals, embodied an entire generation's hope for integration at a heated moment in American history. Denny McLain, his adversary, was a crass self-promoter.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Misleading Title
- By Paul on 01-25-19
By: Sridhar Pappu
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42 Faith
- The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story
- By: Ed Henry
- Narrated by: Ed Henry
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 111
Journalist and baseball lover Ed Henry reveals for the first time the backstory of faith that guided Jackie Robinson into not only the baseball record books but the annals of civil rights advancement as well. Through recently discovered sermons, interviews with Robinson's family and friends, and even an unpublished book by the player himself, Henry details a side of Jackie's humanity that few have taken the time to see.
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5 out of 5 stars
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42Faith
- By Phillip L. on 04-11-17
By: Ed Henry
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Game Six
- Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America's Pastime
- By: Mark Frost
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 103
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 81
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 82
Best-selling author Mark Frost takes listeners back to the 1975 World Series in this thrilling account of the greatest baseball game ever played. The Reds and Red Sox endured three soggy days of inactivity to reach game six. But all that downtime could not prepare them for what happened when the skies finally cleared.
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5 out of 5 stars
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For the love of Baseball
- By Al on 03-23-10
By: Mark Frost
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Fall from Grace
- The Truth and Tragedy of "Shoeless Joe" Jackson
- By: Tim Hornbaker
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 125
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 111
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 109
Considered by Ty Cobb as the "finest natural hitter in the history of the game," "Shoeless Joe" Jackson is ranked with the greatest players to ever step onto a baseball diamond. With a career .356 batting average - which is still ranked third all-time - the man from Pickens County, South Carolina, was on his way to becoming one of the greatest players in the sport's history. That is until the "Black Sox" scandal of 1919, which shook baseball to its core.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Entertaining and Educational
- By Colorfinger on 06-14-19
By: Tim Hornbaker
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Opening Day
- The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season
- By: Jonathan Eig
- Narrated by: Richard Allen
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
Drawing on interviews with surviving players, sportswriters, and eyewitnesses, as well as newly discovered material from archives around the country, Jonathan Eig presents a fresh portrait of a ferocious competitor who embodied integration's promise and helped launch the modern civil-rights era. Full of new details and thrilling action, Opening Day brings to life baseball's ultimate story.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Great book, not so great reading
- By Joe Baseball on 08-30-07
By: Jonathan Eig
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The Chicago Cubs
- Story of a Curse
- By: Rich Cohen
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Story5 out of 5 stars 84
For Rich Cohen and millions of other fans, the Chicago Cubs have always been more than a team: they've been the protagonists of a King Arthur epic, in search of the Holy Grail that is winning the World Series. A chronicle of the last few miraculous seasons as experienced through the prism of Cubs history, The Chicago Cubs tracks the famous curse, which was placed on the team in 1945 by the infamous owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, who was ejected from Wrigley Field when he tried to bring his goat into the grandstand for the fifth game of the World Series.
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5 out of 5 stars
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just listen and it all happens again
- By Z. Kuhn on 10-28-17
By: Rich Cohen
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The Grandest Stage
- A History of the World Series
- By: Tyler Kepner
- Narrated by: Tyler Kepner
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
The World Series is the most enduring showcase in American team sports. It’s the place where legends are made, where celebration and devastation can hinge on a fly ball off a foul pole or a grounder beneath a first baseman’s glove. And there’s no one better to bring this rich history to life than New York Times national baseball columnist Tyler Kepner, whose bestselling book about pitching, K, was lauded as “Michelangelo explaining the brush strokes on the Sistine Chapel” by Newsday.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent!
- By DavidF on 09-09-24
By: Tyler Kepner
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Ty Cobb
- A Terrible Beauty
- By: Charles Leerhsen
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 830
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 757
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 755
Ty Cobb is baseball royalty, maybe even the greatest player who ever lived. His lifetime batting average is still the highest of all time, and when he retired in 1928, after twenty-one years with the Detroit Tigers and two with the Philadelphia Athletics, he held more than ninety records. But the numbers don't tell half of Cobb's tale. The Georgia Peach was by far the most thrilling player of the era: "Ty Cobb could cause more excitement with a base on balls than Babe Ruth could with a grand slam," one columnist wrote.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Two Cobb Books, One Review of a Maligned Legacy
- By Jonathan Love on 05-17-16
By: Charles Leerhsen
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1954: The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Major League Baseball Forever
- By: Bill Madden
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Jackie Robinson heroically broke the color barrier in 1947. But how—and, in practice, when—did the integration of the sport actually occur? Bill Madden shows that baseball’s famous black experiment” did not truly succeed until the coming of age of Willie Mays and the emergence of some star players—Larry Doby, Hank Aaron, and Ernie Banks—in 1954. And as a relevant backdrop off the field, it was in May of that year that the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, that segregation be outlawed in America’s public schools.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Acumen bugaboo
- By steve finkelstein on 04-25-21
By: Bill Madden
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The Captain
- The Journey of Derek Jeter
- By: Ian O'Connor
- Narrated by: Nick Pollifrone
- Length: 14 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 294
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 274
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 271
Every spring, Little Leaguers across the country mimic his stance and squabble over the right to wear his number, 2, the next number to be retired by the world’s most famous ball team. Derek Jeter is their hero. He walks in the footsteps of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Mantle, and someday his shadow will loom just as large. Yet he has never been the best player in baseball. In fact, he hasn’t always been the best player on his team. But his intangible grace and Jordanesque ability to play big in the biggest of postseason moments make him the face of the modern Yankee dynasty, and of America’s game.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Great book, terrible narrator.
- By Butter on 05-09-14
By: Ian O'Connor
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Pull Up a Chair
- The Vin Scully Story
- By: Curt Smith
- Narrated by: Don Leslie
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 100
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 95
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Story4 out of 5 stars 95
Since 1950, the instantly recognizable voice of Vin Scully has invited listeners to “pull up a chair” for his peerless play-by-play sports reporting. Recruited and mentored by the legendary Red Barber, Scully has narrated NBC’s Game of the Week, twelve All-Star Games, eighteen no-hitters, and twenty-five World Series, describing players from Duke Snider to Orel Hershiser to Manny Ramirez, with hundreds in between.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Almost perfect
- By steve finkelstein on 02-06-21
By: Curt Smith
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Bottom of the 33rd
- Hope and Redemption in Baseball's Longest Game
- By: Dan Barry
- Narrated by: Dan Barry
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 152
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 132
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 134
On April 18, 1981, a ball game sprang eternal. What began as a modestly attended minor-league game between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings became not only the longest ever played in baseball history, but something else entirely. The first pitch was thrown after dusk on Holy Saturday, and for the next eight hours the night seemed to suspend its participants between their collective pasts and futures, between their collective sorrows and joys....
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4 out of 5 stars
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I love baseball
- By Sher from Provo on 04-08-13
By: Dan Barry
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Ahead of the Curve
- Inside the Baseball Revolution
- By: Brian Kenny
- Narrated by: Brian Kenny
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 519
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 479
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 477
Most people who resist logical thought in baseball preach "tradition" and "respecting the game". But many of baseball's traditions go back to the 19th century, when the pitcher's job was to provide the batter with a ball he could hit and fielders played without gloves. Instead of fearing change, Brian Kenny wants fans to think critically, reject outmoded groupthink, and embrace the changes that have come with the "sabermetric era".
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful detail on baseballs past and future
- By Bradley on 07-27-16
By: Brian Kenny
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Scribe
- My Life in Sports
- By: Bob Ryan
- Narrated by: Bob Ryan
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 83
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Story4 out of 5 stars 75
Ever since he joined the sports department of the Boston Globe in 1968, sports enthusiasts have been blessed with the writing and reporting of Bob Ryan. Tony Kornheiser calls him the "quintessential American sportswriter". For the past 25 years, he has also been a regular on various ESPN shows, especially The Sports Reporters, spreading his knowledge and enthusiasm for sports of all kinds.
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2 out of 5 stars
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No my idea of a memoir
- By Michael Friedman on 12-19-14
By: Bob Ryan
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Men in Blazers Present Encyclopedia Blazertannica
- A Suboptimal Guide to Soccer, America's "Sport of the Future" Since 1972
- By: Michael Davies, Roger Bennett
- Narrated by: Roger Bennett, Michael Davies
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 152
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 136
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 136
Soccer has been America's Sport of the Future since 1972. The Men in Blazers are two English-born, soccer-obsessed broadcasters who have savored the dizzying growth of the game along with millions of Americans, as if it was a rollicking, sporting telenovela playing out in real life. Written in such a way that fully immerses Americans in the history and culture of the world's game, their Encyclopedia Blazertannica relives the careers of such greats such as George Best, Maradona, Beckham...and Alexi Lalas.
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1 out of 5 stars
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complete horsecrap
- By Jordan on 06-07-18
By: Michael Davies, and others
What listeners say about Baseball as a Road to God
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- matthew
- 03-12-15
What a wonderful arguement
Any additional comments?
I sincerely enjoyed this book. Sexton does such a great job of arguing baseball's ability to move from the sphere of the profane to the sacred. This is a wonderful book for anyone who enjoys baseball, religion, and philosophy. It is a fresh take on Americas favorite pastime. The organization was perfect, and the the The narration was great. Sexton's passion for baseball is always present and the book convinced me that for some people, baseball can be a truly transcending experience.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Shank
- 10-26-18
Interesting perspective of baseball
I was pleasantly surprised as I'm not a fan of religion, but a passionate fan of baseball. This was really well written and performed exceptionally well. I recommend it to my friends who love baseball regardless of their religious background.
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