I just finished this little gem of a book.  If you like baseball history, this one’s for you.  The author, John Sexton, also cleverly overlays the game of baseball with modern religion. It’s amazing how much they have in common.

While I’m not going to give a full blown book review, I had to point out one little fact that had me laughing harder than I’ve laughed in a long time.  It has to do with the theory of creation—a topic that seems to generate endless debate, all the way from the battle at the Scopes trial (involving my favorite lawyer Clarence Darrow) to the movie, Noah.  My son just showed me the trailer for Noah and it has quite an interesting twist on the Genesis account of the creation.  Yes, it shows the various days of creation, but it also intermixes evolution, as the fish evolve to land creatures, to apes, then to humans.

But I diverge … back to baseball.  Sexton made a very interesting discovery about baseball.  It turns out that if you take a look at every major league player who as earned the MVP award in back to back seasons, there are only nine of them—the same number of players in a lineup.  Even more miraculous is that these nine players each played a different position.  So, if you put together this MVP group of players, you’d have a perfectly fielded team.  A super-duper All Star team.  Now that can’t be coincidence.  What are the odds that in the history of baseball there are exactly nine players, each playing a different position, who have won the most prestigious award in two consecutive seasons?  It must be an act of creation.

Of course, that sounds ludicrous, as if some kind of supreme being is orchestrating the management of major league baseball.   But Sexton, while tongue in cheek, does state his point rather forcefully.

If you have a few spare hours, this book is definitely worth the read.  Kind of makes you want to go to a ball park this summer.