The Faith of Fifty Million: Baseball, Religion and American Culture

Edited by Christopher H. Evans and William R. Herzog II
Reviewed by Steve Gietschier

This collection of nine essays, plus introduction and conclusion, organized around a single but broad theme, does not make for easy reading. While it may be a bit of overkill to use the warning label, "for scholarly eyes only," it is certainly easy to understand why Stanley M. Hauerwas, professor of theological ethics at the Duke University Divinity School, writes in his foreword, "I was unprepared to face the personal and intellectual challenge this book demands of the reader." Indeed. These essays are thoughtful and provocative. They take time. They require reflection. They cannot be consumed all at once. On the book's back cover, a blurb supplied by David Eisenhower, of all people, includes the deathless cliche, "I could not put it [the book] down." Well, Eisenhower may be a baseball fan and a scholar, but this reviewer, not only could put the book down; I had to. There is just too much here to digest all at once. And all of it, I think, will not be to everyone's taste.

Evans is associate professor of church history and director of United Methodist Studies at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, New York. Herzog is Sallie Knowles Crozer Professor at the same school. They have organized this collection; their choice of nine chapters is deliberately symbolic and they contributed to it as well. Each wrote two essays individually, and together they composed the introduction and the conclusion. Not surprisingly and fairly typically for books of this kind, the editors' work comes closest to examining the main premises they wish to explore. The other essays, all but one written by theological scholars, are variations on the main theme.

This book is grounded in the editors' professed love for baseball and in their belief "that the game illuminates culture." Its title comes from a scene in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby. At a luncheon, Gatsby introduces Nick Carraway, the book's narrator, to a man named Meyer Wolfsheim, a fictionalized version of gambler Arnold Rothstein. After lunch, Gatsby explains to Nick, "He is the man who fixed the World Series back in 1919." Nick is staggered. "It never occurred to me," he reflects, "that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people..." It is this faith and its ramifications that the editors seek to understand, "faith" in this context being related to a nexus of several beliefs, among them that baseball is more than a game; that it is quintessentially American and a "distinctive symbol of American identity;" and that it possesses sacred meaning within American culture.

The nine essays are grouped into four parts. Evans' pair in Part I "explore the relationships of baseball to civil religion and national identity" and form the core of the book. Part II includes three essays covering four individuals: Christy Mathewson and Grover Cleveland Alexander viewed through the "saint/sinner" prism; Joe DiMaggio as the iconic hero of Santiago, the protagonist in Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea; and Joe Jackson, the fallen male idol made scapegoat. Part III's two essays explore aspects of baseball's role in the American dream, the successful odyssey of Jackie Robinson and the mostly frustrated role of women in the game. Finally, the two essays in Part IV discuss "the continuing lure of the Elysian Fields," that is, baseball as inspiration even in post-modem America where the game is no longer the national pastime.

There is much to chew on here, obviously, and to contemplate and much, I must say, with which to take issue. But that is the nature of scholarly discourse. Experienced baseball readers will not find oodles of new information here, but they will find nine essays that are thoughtful, insightful, well written and cogently argued. And there are plenty of nuggets worth a second thought. I particularly like Hauerwas' observation that "being a Cubs' fan and a pacifist are closely linked; namely, both commitments teach you that life is not about winning." Ouch.

One final note: the photo on the cover shows the National Anthem ceremony prior to the 1984 All-Star Game at Candlestick Park. It was taken by my former colleague here at The Sporting News, Jim Meier.