Attached Paper Annual Meeting 2024

Fandom, Futility, and Failure: A Theology of Baseball

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

 

Baseball can be called a Catholic sport since Pope Francis referenced John Navone, who said, "Jesus responded to the problem of failure with a loving patience.…like that of teachers who hope that at the end of the course the students will have learned what the course was all about." William Cavanaugh explains further in Theologies of Failure, how part of being Christian means following Jesus in failing to redeem humankind. Whereas Elysian Fields originated in Hoboken in 1846 as a bucolic escape from urban factory life, baseball has become for “fanatics” a daily meditation on human failings. The hitter who fails three out of four times or pitcher who fails once every inning are esteemed. This paper interviews devoted “fans” of the losing-est team in America’s losing-est city, the San Diego Padres, (named after Franciscan Friars) about the religious appeal of fealty to futility amidst a sport about failure.