Baseball is a strange sport: it consists of long periods in which
little seems to be happening, punctuated by high-energy outbursts
of rapid fire activity. Because of this, despite ever greater
profits, Major League Baseball is bent on finding ways to shorten
games, and to tailor baseball to today's shorter attention spans.
But for the true fan, baseball is always compelling to watch-and
intellectually fascinating. It's superficially slow-pace is an
opportunity to participate in the distinctive thinking practice
that defines the game. If baseball is boring, it's boring the way
philosophy is boring: not because there isn't a lot going on, but
because the challenge baseball poses is making sense of it all. In
this deeply entertaining book, philosopher and baseball fan Alva
Noe explores the many unexpected ways in which baseball is truly a
philosophical kind of game. He ponders how, for example, observers
of baseball are less interested in what happens, than in who is
responsible for what happens; every action receives praise or
blame. To put it another way, in baseball-as in the law-we decide
what happened based on who is responsible for what happened. Noe
also explains the curious activity of keeping score. A score card
is not merely a record of the game, like a video recording; it is
an account of the game. Baseball requires that true fans try to
tell the story of the game, in real time, as it unfolds, and thus
actively participate in its creation. Some argue that baseball is
fundamentally a game about numbers. Noe's wide-ranging, thoughtful
observations show that, to the contrary, baseball is not only a
window on language, culture, and the nature of human action, but is
intertwined with deep and fundamental human truths. The book ranges
over different baseball topics, from the nature of umpiring and the
role of instant replay, to the nature of the strike zone, from the
rampant use of surgery to controversy surrounding performance
enhancing drugs.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
