Program Particulars
*Times denoted refer to web version of audio

(01:23–00:57) Music
"The Ball Game" from Diamond Cuts: Play Ball, performed by Yvonne Hood

(01:05–01:18) Music
"The Ball Game" from Diamond Cuts: Play Ball, performed by Yvonne Hood

(02:15–03:39) Music
"Take Me Out to the Ball Game" from Howlin' at the Moon, performed by Sam Bush

(03:24) Don Larsen's Perfect Game
On October 8, 1956, Don Larsen of the New York Yankees pitched a perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the fifth game of the World Series. In the history of the major leagues, only 16 other perfect games have been pitched—none of them in the World Series.

(04:10) Reference to Stagg and Naismith
Amos Alonzo Stagg (1862–1965), was an American collegiate football coach and pioneer who is best known for his tenure at the University of Chicago. Known as the "grand old man" of college football, Stagg coached until he was 98 years old. He is credited with the invention of numerous innovations in football, including the Statue of Liberty play, the shotgun formation, and the direct snap to the ball carrier.
In 1898, James Naismith, a theologian and inventor of the game of basketball, applied to be the athletic director at the University of Kansas. In a telegram recommending his former player and friend for the position, Stagg wrote:

Recommend James Naismith, inventor of basketball, medical doctor, Presbyterian minister, teetotaller, all-round athlete, non-smoker and owner of a vocabulary without cuss words.

(05:18) Reference to "Muscular Christianity"
The phrase muscular Christianity refers to the promotion of competitive sports and physical education by Protestant leaders to create an ideal of Christian manliness. It was held that it is part of religious duty to maintain good physical condition, and thereby exercise good morals and religious values.

In an article by Chris Armstrong in Christianity Today, "Muscular Christianity's Prodigal Son, College Sports", the author provides a historical backdrop for this approach and questions the relevance and affect it might have on contemporary youth. Price refers to a book written by James Mathisen and Tony Ladd that delves into the history of this integrated approach to athletics and religion, Muscular Christianity: Evangelical Protestants and the Development of American Sports. Listen to a National Public Radio interview with an author who writes about Billy Sunday, a former baseball player turned minister who preached that Christians were "as strong and as tough as anybody else."

(06:28–07:45) Music
"Chariots of Fire" from Themes, performed by Vangelis

(06:57) Audio Clip from Chariots of Fire
Winner of several Academy Awards in 1981, Chariots of Fire is based on a true story of two men who compete as runners in the 1924 Paris Olympics. A Jew from England, Harold Abrahams desperately desires to win acceptance through athletic achievement, and wants to prove to the world that the Jewish race is not inferior.

A devout Christian Scotsman, Eric Liddell, believes that he has to succeed as a testament to his religious faith. Liddell disqualified himself from his strongest event, the 100-yard dash, during the Games when he discovered the event would be held on Sunday. Several days later, Liddell shocked everyone by capturing the gold medal and setting the world record in the 400-yard run in 47.6 seconds.

The following scene from the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire features Eric Liddell meeting with his brother and sister. In this scene, he informs them that he intends to return to China in the Missionary Service. Until that time, he says, he wants to devote all his efforts to running in the Olympics, and explains:

Eric Liddell: I believe that God made me for a purpose — for China. But He also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure. To give it up would be to hold him in contempt. You were right; it's not just fun. To win is to honor Him.

(07:34) Writings on the Virtue of Sport
Price lists several works focusing on the impact sports and play have on individuals and in the popular culture:

• The Joy of Sports by Michael Novak
• Feast of Fools by Harvey Cox
• In Praise of Play by Robert Neale
• Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture by Johan Huizinga

(10:00–13:02) Music
"First Impressions" from Appalachia Waltz, performed by Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Mark O'Connor

(10:44) Reading from Novak's Book
The following passage was excerpted from the chapter "The Fourth and Fifth Seals: Rooting, Agon" of Michael Novak's The Joy of Sports, published in 1976:

If I had to give one single reason for my love of sports it would be this: I love the tests of the human spirit. I love to see defeated teams refuse to die. I love to see impossible odds confronted. I love to see impossible dares accepted. I love to see the incredible grace lavished on simple plays—the simple flashing beauty of perfect form—but, even more, I love to see the heart that refuses to give in, refuses to panic, seizes opportunity, slips through defenses, exerts itself far beyond capacity, forges momentarily of its bodily habitat an instrument of almost perfect will. Perhaps it is a form of Slavic masochism (we should never discount it), but all my life I have never known such thoroughly penetrating joys as playing with an inspired team against a team we recognized from the beginning had every reason to beat us. I love it when the other side is winning and there are only moments left; I love it when it would be reasonable to be reconciled to defeat, but one will not, cannot; I love it when a last set of calculated, reckless, free, and impassioned efforts is crowned with success. When I see others play that way, I am full of admiration, of gratitude. That is the way I believe the human race should live. When human beings actually accomplish it, it is for me as if the intentions of the Creator were suddenly limpid before our eyes: as though into the fiery heart of the Creator we had momentary insight.

(15:16) Reference to BCS
The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was established prior to the 1998 season to determine the national champion for college football while maintaining and enhancing the bowl system that's nearly 100 years old. Using a mix of rankings and mathematical formulas, the BCS matches the best teams in the NCAA at the end of the season.

(16:27) Audio Clip from Bull Durham
In the following edited excerpt from the 1988 movie Bull Durham, Annie Savoy (played by Susan Sarandon), a savant extraordinaire of baseball and life, explains her philosophy on the religious role of baseball:

Annie Savoy: I believe in the church of baseball. I've tried all the major religions and most of the minor ones. I've worshiped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary, and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I learned that, I gave Jesus a chance. But it just didn't work out between us. The Lord laid too much guilt on me. I prefer metaphysics to theology. You see there's no guilt in baseball.

You see there's a certain amount of life wisdom I give these boys. I can expand their minds. Sometimes when I've got a ballplayer alone, I'll just read Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman to him. And the guys are so sweet—they always stay and listen. Of course, a guy will listen to anything if he thinks it's foreplay. I make them feel confident, and they make me feel safe, and pretty. Of course, what I give them lasts a lifetime. What they give me lasts 142 games. Sometimes it seems like a bad trade, but bad trades are part of baseball. I mean who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas for god's sake. It's a long season and you got to trust it. I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul—day in, day out—is the church of baseball.

(21:34) Reference to Niebuhr
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) was an American theologian who argued that Christianity is obligated to confront ethical, social, and moral problems. A political activist, he wrote prolifically and penned well-known works such as Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), Christianity and Power Politics (1940), Faith and History (1949), and many others.

Citing Herbert Butterfield and G.K. Chesterton, Niebuhr often observed that the doctrine of original sin is the one empirically verifiable article of Christian faith, and if one wants to know and understand sin and its effects, he or she need only to read the newspaper. In The Nature and Destiny of Man, Niebuhr calls attention to sin and other recognizable forces at work in the world through social turmoil and change.

In the essay "The Pitchers Mound as Cosmic Mountain" found in From Season to Season, Price tells a story about Niebuhr explaining the import of a double play to another theologian, Paul Tillich:

There is a story about Reinhold Niebuhr, the American-born theologian, taking a fellow theologian Paul Tillich, who was a recent immigrant from Germany, to a baseball game. After several innings Tillich was still having trouble getting the knack of the game. As play progressed, an impressive "twin killing" or double play was started by the shortstop on the home team. Fans throughout the stands roared with approval and applause. Puzzled by such an overwhelming response to a play that had not seen the ball hit over the fence nor even far enough to score a base-runner, Tillich sought an explanation from Niebuhr. Failing to communicate the significance of the event in understandable baseball terms, Niebuhr finally said, "It's a kairos, Paulus, it's a kairos." With that explanation, Tillich understood. (For Tillich, kairos was the category of time and history that marks turning points, occasions of depth rather than events continuing the normal chronometric measure of time.) Although the story in its present form might be embellished or even apocryphal (in which case it would be emblematic of baseball's lore), it adequately encapsulates the way in which a heroic event in baseball is sometimes seen as an event wherein a force larger than life is present, an event wherein the course of events is transformed by the nature of the event itself.

(22:04) Quotes of Falwell and Notre Dame Coach
Rev. Jerry Falwell is a fundamentalist Christian minister and televangelist, who is best known for founding the Moral Majority, a political action group that lobbied for prayer and the teaching of creationism in public schools, opposed the Equal Rights Amendment, homosexual rights, and abortion. The Moral Majority was dissolved in 1989.

Falwell serves as chancellor of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. Read a passage from From Season to Season: Sports as American Religion, in which Price expands upon Falwell's comments about the influence of sport:

Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, missionary opportunities for sports teams expanded. As the Liberty University Eagles moved to NCAA Division I football, evangelist Jerry Falwell, who also served as the university's president, expressed a somewhat different "outreach" goal for the university's team. He most wanted the Eagles to "knock the bejabbers out of Notre Dame," as he put it, all "in the name of the Lord." Falwell not only desired to field competitive athletic teams; he also aspired to have the Liberty program conquer all others in order to promote fundamentalism. "After all," he reasoned, "look at the attention focused on the Mormon Church since Brigham Young University became a national football power." At BYU a few years earlier it was reported that the Cougar's football coach could "move a Mormon student pep rally to tears with a talk about the power of prayer."

Although sports spaces have been utilized for religious rituals and often have taken on a spiritual character, another manifestation of the confusion concerning sports and religion has to do with the ways in which sports have co-opted religious functions in order to increase or gain competitive advantage. Former Redskin coach and sometime presidential consultant George Allen insisted on locker room worship services for his players on Sunday game days because the services did more, he thought, "to produce togetherness and mutual respect than anything else I've found in twenty-one years of coaching." Following the consecutive close-call victories over Michigan and Michigan State several years ago, Lou Holtz blended faith and the sporting spirit as he reflected on the deflected fourth quarter passes that had determined the Notre Dame victories. "I know that you are going to say God doesn't care who wins," Holtz quipped. "And I say that's true, but I believe his mother does." Obviously, that theological sense and joke plays best with Christian traditions that esteem the role of Mary. Yet if God really did care about who won and lost, Notre Dame theology department chairman observed, "What was going on during the Gerry Faust era? Was God on vacation?" Or consider the implications about divine favor in ambiguous outcomes: "What kind of God is it," suggests Martin Marty, "who could make up his mind during Notre Dame's 10-10 tie with Michigan State in 1966?" Marty continues: "People are responsible to the ways of a God who cares. We can never be specific as to say that God's care is applied to a specific event—even those events that are as serious, especially in some people's minds, as Notre Dame football." Yet by getting the Irish football players to believe that God is on their side, Holtz invokes the ultimate intangible—faith—which indeed often generates the spirit, attitude, and outcome of victory.

(23:59–26:05) Music
"The First Baseball Game" from Baseball's Greatest Hits: Let's Play II, performed by Nat King Cole

(26:05–27:26) Music
"Take Me Out to the Ball Game" from Howlin' at the Moon, performed by Sam Bush

(28:00) Sports and the Cinema
Lists abound that provide insight into the most popular sports movies made. ESPN provides a list of the top 20 sports movies.

(28:17) Audio Clip from Field of Dreams
The following scene from the 1989 movie Field of Dreams features the reclusive author Terence Mann (James Earl Jones) giving an impassioned speech to Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) and instructing him not to sell his land, even in the face of foreclosure:

Mann: Ray, people will come, Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway, not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. "Of course, we won't mind if you look around," you'll say. "It's only twenty dollars per person." They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it; for it is money they have and peace they lack.

Mark: Ray, just sign the papers.

Mann: And they'll walk out to the bleachers, sit in shirt-sleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game, and it'll be as if they had dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces.

Mark: Ray, when the bank opens in the morning, they'll foreclose.

Mann: People will come, Ray.

Mark: You're broke, Ray. You sell now or you'll lose everything.

Mann: The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers; it has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. Ohhhh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.

Mark: Ray, you will lose everything. You will be evicted. C'mon Ray.

Ray: I'm not signing.

Mark: Ahhh, you're crazy!

(28:11–28:25) Music
"Winter Walk" from Cobb (Original Soundtrack), performed by Elliot Goldenthal

(28:45–29:15) Music
"Winter Walk" from Cobb (Original Soundtrack), performed by Elliot Goldenthal

(29:23) Quote of Martin Marty
Martin Marty, one of America's most distinguished theologians and professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, quoted President Dwight D. Eisenhower when he said, "An atheist is a guy who watches a Notre Dame-SMU football game and doesn't care who wins."

(30:55) Reference to Touchdown Jesus
Located on a wall of Hesburgh Library at Notre Dame, a large mosaic of Jesus Christ reflects into a narrow rectangular pool. With his arms outstretched above his head and overlooking the football stadium, the image of Christ looks as if he's signaling that the touchdown is good, and so is affectionately referred to by students and fans as "Touchdown Jesus."

(32:05) Omphalos Myth
In Greek,omphalos means "navel." In ancient Greece, an omphalos was a religious, stone artifact or tablet that was believed to allow direct communication with the gods. According to Greek myth, Zeus sent out two eagles to fly across the world to meet at its center, the "navel" of the world. In order to mark this point, omphalos stones were erected in several areas around the Mediterranean Sea, the most famous of these being the oracle at Delphi.

Two of Mercea Eliade's most recognizable works, The Sacred and the Profane and Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return illustrate the ways in which innate religious tendencies of human beings surface in the secular rituals of current society.

(33:22) Passage from Donald Hall
The passage Price mentions and Krista recites was excerpted from the poet Donald Hall's volume of prose about sports, Fathers Playing Catch with Sons: Essays on Sport (Mostly Baseball):

Baseball connects American males with each other, not only through bleacher friendships and neighbor loyalties, not only through barroom fights, but most importantly through generations. When you are small you may not discuss politics or union dues or profit margins with your father's cigar-smoking friends when your father has gone out for a six-pack; but you may discuss baseball. It is all you have in common, because your father's friend does not wish to discuss the Assistant Principal or Alice Bisbee Morgan. About the season's moment you know as much as he does; both of you may shake your heads over Lefty's wildness or the rookie who was called out last Saturday when he tried to steal home with two out in the ninth inning down by one.

Players age, and baseball changes, as veterans slide off by jet to Japan instead of buses to Spokane. Baseball changes, and we wish it never to change. Yet we know that inside the ball, be it horsehide or cowhide, the universe remains unaltered. Even if the moguls, twenty years from now, manage to move the game indoors and schedule twelve months a year, the seasons will remain implicit, like the lives of the players.

Baseball sets off the meaning of life precisely because it is pure of meaning. As the ripples in the sand, in the Kyoto garden, organize and formalize the dust which is dust, so the diamonds and rituals of baseball create an elegant, trivial, enchanted grid on which our suffering, shapeless, sinful day leans for the momentary grace of order.

(34:01) Mention of Tom Faulkner
Tom Faulkner's essay asserting that hockey is Canada's civil or national religion is "A Puckish Reflection on Religion in Canada," which is published as part of From Season to Season: Sports as American Religion.

(35:47) Fiasco and Little League World Series
After competing for the Bronx, New York team in the 2001 Little League World Series 12-and-under division, it was determined that Danny Almonte's father had falsified his birth certificate. He was 14 years old. The team's third-place finish in the World Series was nullified.

(37:15–38:31) Music
"Puckett's Farewell" from Sacred Heart, performed by Peter Ostroushko

(37:32) Audio Clip from Ken Burns Documentary
The following passage of former governor Mario Cuomo speaking about the virtues of baseball was excerpted from "The Fifth Inning: Shadow Ball," part of Ken Burns' film series Baseball:

Mario Cuomo: It is a community activity. You need all nine people helping one other. I love the bunt plays. I love the idea of the bunt. I love the idea of the sacrifice; even the word is good. Giving yourself up for the good of the whole. That's Jeremiah. That's thousands of years of wisdom. You find your own good in the good of the whole. You find your own individual fulfillment in the success of the community. The Bible tried to do that and didn't teach you; baseball did.

(39:05–41:38) Music
"Sunlight Seen Through Towering Trees" from Gone To Earth, performed by David Sylvian

(39:19) Reading from Jackson's Book
An accomplished professional player and coach, Phil Jackson will best be remembered as a coach who, up to now, had won nine NBA championships, tying Red Auerbach's record. His coaching style had given him the ability to meld disparate personalities of talented superstars and successful role players into a cohesive unit. The following extended passage was excerpted from Phil Jackson's introduction to his 1995 book Sacred Hoops: Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior:

This is a book about a vision and a dream. When I was named head coach of the Chicago Bulls in 1989, my dream was not just to win championships, but to do it in a way that wove together my two greatest passions: basketball and spiritual exploration.

On the surface this may sound like a crazy idea, but intuitively I sensed that there was a link between spirit and sport. Besides, winning at any cost didn't interest me. From my years as a member of the championship New York Knicks, I'd already learned that winning is ephemeral. Yes, victory is sweet, but it doesn't necessarily make life easier the next season or even that day. After the cheering crowds disperse and the last bottle of champagne is drained, you have to return to the battlefield and start all over again.

In basketball—as in life—true joy comes from being fully present in each and every moment, not just when things are going your way. Of course, it's no accident that things are more likely to go your way when you stop worrying about whether you're going to win or lose and focus your full attention on what's happening right this moment. The day I took over the Bulls, I vowed to create an environment based on the principles of selflessness and compassion I'd learned as a Christian in my parents' home; sitting on a cushion practicing Zen; and studying the teachings of the Lakota Sioux. I knew that the only way to win consistently was to give everybody—from the stars to the number 12 player on the bench—a vital role on the team, and inspire them to be acutely aware of what was happening, even when the spotlight was on somebody else. More than anything, I wanted to build a team that would blend the individual talent with a heightened group consciousness. A team that could win big without becoming small in the process.

(41:45) First Actuality from NFL Championship Game
Fondly referred to as the Ice Bowl, the 1967 National Football League championship game pitted two legendary teams, the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys, and two legendary coaches, Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry, against one another. The following passage was excerpted from The Complete History of the Green Bay Packers: 1919–2003, in which CBS announcer Ray Scott calls the game:

Announcer Scott: A sellout crowd has braved the coldest New Year's Eve in the history of Green Bay, Wisconsin to witness the 1967 NFL championship game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Green Bay Packers. The mercury has dipped to minus fifteen degrees. Winds gusting at eighteen miles per hour as we approach kick-off. That makes it the coldest game in league championship history. The previous low, a balmy five above, in the 1945 game. The Cowboys haven't played in Green Bay since 1960—their very first year in the NFL. And they've never beaten the Packers in the regular season or playoffs. (sounds of players talking) So here we go, Don Chandler kicks off…

(42:57) Super Bowl as a Symbol System
To learn Price's thoughts on the Super Bowl as a festival of American civil religion, read his essay "More Than a Game."

(44:03) Second Actuality from NFL Championship Game
In the waning moments of the game, the quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, Don Meredith, attempts a Hail Mary pass that falls short. The Packers would prevail 21-17. The final call was excerpted from The Complete History of the Green Bay Packers: 1919–2003:

Announcer Scott: Seven seconds left. Meredith will have to throw deep and pray. He's going for Stokes, who is covered tightly by Adderly. It falls incomplete. The clock has run out, and the Green Bay Packers, in one of the most thrilling comebacks of all time, have beaten the Dallas cowboys to win the 1967 NFL championship.

(47:04) Reference to American Academy of Religion
The American Academy of Religion (AAR) is an organization composed of 8,000 academics and theologians promoting the research and scholarship in the field of religion.

(49:02) Story of Elijah
Price cites the biblical story of the prophet Elijah, who is believed to have lived circa the ninth century BCE and is commonly remembered for ascending to heaven in a fiery chariot. The following excerpt of Elijah confronting the prophets of Ba'al was excerpted from 1 Kings, chapter 18: 17-40, of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible:

When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, "Is it you, you troubler of Israel?" He answered, "I have not troubled Israel; but you have, and your father's house, because you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals. Now therefore have all Israel assemble for me at Mount Carmel, with the four hundred fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel's table." So Ahab sent to all the Israelites, and assembled the prophets at Mount Carmel.

Elijah then came near to all the people, and said, "How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." The people did not answer him a word. Then Elijah said to the people, "I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord; but Baal's prophets number four hundred fifty. Let two bulls be given to us; let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it; I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. Then you call on the name of your god and I will call on the name of the Lord; the god who answers by fire is indeed God." All the people answered, "Well spoken!"

Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, "Choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first, for you are many; then call on the name of your god, but put no fire to it." So they took the bull that was given them, prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, crying, "O Baal, answer us!" But there was no voice, and no answer. They limped about the altar that they had made. At noon Elijah mocked them, saying, "Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened." Then they cried aloud and, as was their custom, they cut themselves with swords and lances until the blood gushed out over them.

As midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice, no answer, and no response. Then Elijah said to all the people, "Come closer to me"; and all the people came closer to him. First he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down; Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, "Israel shall be your name"; with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. Then he made a trench around the altar, large enough to contain two measures of seed. Next he put the wood in order, cut the bull in pieces, and laid it on the wood. He said, "Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood." Then he said, "Do it a second time"; and they did it a second time. Again he said, "Do it a third time"; and they did it a third time, so that the water ran all around the altar, and filled the trench also with water.

At the time of the offering of the oblation, the prophet Elijah came near and said, "O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back." Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and even licked up the water that was in the trench. When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, "The Lord indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God." Elijah said to them, "Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them escape." Then they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the Wadi Kishon, and killed them there.

(50:14–53:12) Music
"Puckett's Farewell" from Sacred Heart, performed by Peter Ostroushko