Infinite Baseball

Notes from a Philosopher at the Ballpark

By: Alva Noe

Narrated by: Barry Abrams

Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

In this deeply entertaining book, philosopher and baseball fan Alva Noë explores the many unexpected ways in which baseball is truly a philosophical kind of game. For example, he ponders how 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. Noë 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. Noë'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 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. Throughout, Noë's observations are surprising and provocative. Infinite Baseball is a book for the true baseball fan.

©2019 Oxford University Press (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Eye Roll

The authored tried way too hard to be edgy and controversial, but his takes were not particularly insightful and were not supported with sound reasoning. This is a baseball book inexplicably written by a non-baseball person.