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Philosophy and Sport

If Life is Finite, Why am I Watching this Damn Game?

Kenneth Shouler discusses the aesthetics of sports and the nature of choices.

For baseball fans, the scene may never be equalled for sheer historic value. It was the All-Star Game at Fenway Park in Boston, 1999. A new millennium would begin a few months later and several dozen members of Major League Baseball’s All-Century Team were arrayed across the diamond. Living legends such as Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, Stan Musial and Bob Feller, Frank Robinson and Warren Spahn, even Roger Clemens and Rickey Henderson – all stood and waved to fans, drinking in the deafening applause of several generations of spectators. The decibel level rose still further as Ted Williams was driven in from the bullpen on a golf cart, and announced as the “greatest hitter that ever lived.

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