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DOUG MUZZIO: Hello, I'm Doug Muzzio. This is City
Talk. It's ineffable. It's hierophantic. It's an axis
mundi. It has scared places in times, faith in doubt,
blessings and curses, and joy and elation. It's a road
to God. It's baseball?
DM: And here to talk baseball and religion is the
preeminent theologian in the church of baseball,
John Sexton. John is the president of New York
University and co-author with Thomas Oliphant and
Peter Schwartz of Baseball as a Road to God: Seeing
Beyond the Game. Before becoming NYU president, John
was the university's law school dean, he clerked for
Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger, and chaired the
religion department at St. Francis College. I first met
John as a freshman in high school more than half a
century ago. He is a friend, a mentor, a role model. John.
JOHN SEXTON: It's great to be with you, Doug.
DM: It's always-- always great to be with you. So you
open the book and we come to a date. And the date is--
JS: A sacred date.
DM: A sex-- excuse me, a sacred date, October 4th, 1955.
Explain this date. JS: So first, you-- you have to--
you have to look at this otherwise perfect setta
teeth, and see that this one right here is chipped, see?
So this was the time for those that don't know it--
you'll remember it-- of the black leather jacket guys.
And-- and-- DM: I have one-- I-- I wore one to work
today. JS: Yeah, well I don't think of you in this
way. DM: Oh, okay, then, different-- JS: But-- we
used to call-- we used to call those guys the rocks.
And my-- my-- my-- my best friend Dougie and I were the
only two Dodger fans in-- in our-- in our neighborhood.
And-- here we are, it's the eighth grade, it's 1955,
and-- and we've had disappointment,
disappointment, disappointment,
disappointment. And if you went back-- you-- you know,
even to-- to-- I was born in 1942. 1941, so the year
before I was born it was Dixie Walker. So this is--
you know, it's always-- there's somethin' that
happens that keeps the Dodgers-- and the Dodgers
had never won the World Series. And each year they
would play the Yankees it seemed. It wasn't literally
true, but-- but almost-- DM: Almost. JS:
--almost every year they would play the Yankees. And
each year, in the sixth grade, seventh grade, these
guys would get us against the-- the wire fence and--
and they would say, "Okay, ad-- admit it. Berra's
better than Campanella. Mantle's better than
Snider." And they'd go down the lineup-- DM: And all
those things were true by the way-- JS: --there--
there-- there's-- DM: --I just wanted to point that
out, but go ahead. JS: --we were like the
Christian martyrs. We-- we would never admit it. They
would knock the crap out of us. So-- they did this
every-- DM: Deservedly. Go ahead. JS: --we would
get punished every-- every-- every year for this. So-- so
now it's the seventh game of the World Series. Baseball
is still played on grass and it's still played during the
day. And-- and usually the nuns would let us listen to
the radio, because they didn't have radios in the
convent. So they-- we could bring the radio in-- DM:
Absolutely. JS: --and they would let us listen to
the radio. So-- so-- but we had done, the eighth grade
class at St. Francis had done something wrong, and
Sister St. James would not let us listen to-- DM:
Oh, those nuns. See, we-- we-- we were able to do this
game. Go ahead-- JS: Yeah, yeah, so-- so--
it's-- we-- we're in lockdown. You know, we-- we
go into class after lunch, the series starts, we come
out at 3:00 and we had these big transistor radios. And--
and we turn it on, Dougie and I, and it's the seventh
inning and the Dodgers are winning two to nothing.
DM: Oh, it made me sick-- JS: So we can taste it.
This is game seven. This is the deciding game. Podres is
pitching for the Dodgers. You know, he was a
problematic young pitcher, but-- but he's pitchin',
he's pitchin' well. We dash home to my house. We go down
into the basement. Basement that you were in-- you--
you-- DM: Oh, please, I've seen the shrine, come
on. JS: --we go-- we go down into the basement where
I have a shrine to Jackie Robinson in the corner.
And-- and-- and we-- we turn on-- DM: It was a holy
place. JS: --we turn on the-- the-- the-- the r--
the radio. It's ninth inning. Yanks are still up
two to nothing. I'm sorry, Dodgers-- DM: No, the
Dodgers, come on. JS: --Dodgers are still up.
Yanks are up at the plate, Dodgers are still winning
two to nothing. So we do what two kids did in those
days. We take down a metal crucifix about this big and
we kneel down next to the radio. (LAUGH) And we turn
the radio on and we're listening and-- and we're
praying at the same time. And we're listening and
we're praying, and we got this crucifix in dynamic
tension between us. And then ground ball to Pee Wee
Reese. Fields it, throws to Gil Hodges, final out.
Dodgers have won their first World Series, and the only
World Series the Brooklyn Dodgers would ever win. The
only one. And the son of a gun Dougie exclaims, lets go
of the crucifix, exclaims, and the head of Christ
knocks off the top of my tooth. And then--
DM: This did it to you. JS: This is my-- my
stigmata to the-- to-- to that sacred day.
DM: Okay, before we get into the meaning of this sacred
day, seven miles away, a different Dougie is with his
father and his brother and his mother, (TAPPING)
watching the same game. And the three of us are Yankee
fans. And my mother's a Dodger fan. And we're sick.
It's disgusting. It's evil. So that seventh game was
hell. So was the sixth game with Sandy Amoros. So don't
hand me any a that. JS: So this is the Crusades.
This-- this is Cortez and the Incas. This is-- it
depends on which side you're on, right? DM: I wanna be
Cortez. No Incas for me. (LAUGH) JS: One-- one--
one person's saint is another person's sinner. You
know, Johnny Damon, when-- when-- when-- when he's
playin' for the Red Sox-- DM: He's evil.
JS: --is-- is-- is a saint to the Red Sox fans--
DM: Yeah, and evil to us. JS: --evil to Yankee fans.
DM: Of-- of course. JS: He comes to the Yankee
fans, the Red Sox fans put out a t-shirt that says,
"Looks like Judas, throws like"-- I'm sorry, "Looks
like Jesus, throws-- throws like Mary"-- DM: Like
Mary. JS: --"Acts like Judas." You know-- you know,
so it all depends. DM: Okay. Okay. So let's get to
the book itself. It's a really interesting
combination of religious philosophy and history and
baseball. How do you come to this, and how does this
epiphanic moment in-- in October of 1955 sorta
capture what you-- this book is about, and the course you
teach at NYU is about? JS: Well-- you-- you have the
advantage of knowing the person of whom I'm gonna
speak, but-- the-- the-- I was blessed, years before I
met you, with a man who really formed my
professional life and my commitment to the vocation
of-- of-- of-- of teaching and being with students and
using education to shape people. And his name was
Charlie. The-- the-- the greatest teacher that
I've ever encountered-- DM: And you went to
Charlie's Prep. JS: Yes, I went to Brooklyn Prep,
which we call Charlie's Prep, because of the
influence of him on that wonderful school and
community. But in any case, ch-- Charlie had a way of
looking at things. He would say to us-- "Think strange,
boys." You know, he would use oxymoronic teaching. And
this, of course, when-- when-- when I first met you,
is-- what you saw me doing with my high school
students-- DM: And me. JS: --ultimately with
you. So in any case-- the-- there was a big event at
NYU. And-- and-- after the event was over, one of the
student volunteers walked up to me and he said, "You
know, I hear you're a big baseball fan." He said, "I
find the sport utterly boring." Now most of my
ideas, professionally, I can trace back to Charlie. This
is a moment I-- I could tell you, I-- I-- I was
channeling him. (LAUGH) And-- 'cause he had a phrase
he would always use when he thought you were just
completely off base. And I look at this young man, I
even deepen my voice as if the-- I-- I-- you know, I
didn't think of Charlie, but I was Charlie for a moment.
And I said, "You are among the unwashed." (LAUGH) I
said, "But if you will allow me to assign you, in a
directed research, 12 books, and do a paper on each of
the 12, by the end of the semester you will find out
that," and I came up with this phrase, "Baseball is a
road to God." So Baseball as a Road to God 1.0 was--
was kinda just Charlie, think strange, oxymoronic
thinking, get-- get a student to think about
something in a way they'd never thought about before.
2.0, I began to notice that as we did it, the-- there
the-- there actually were interesting overlaps. The
obvious ones like the cathedral and the stadium,
the-- trinity-- DM: Right, right, and the
priest. Right, the-- the right-- JS: --all of that
kinda stuff. But-- but-- but there was something that
went beyond that, you know, that got deeper. In the
moments where, you know, William James would say the
religious experience is present, but you could feel
yourself in certain moments in baseball, father/son
frequently, touching something transcendent. So
that was 2.0. It-- it-- it-- it kinda began to feel
that way. And then 3.0 was, wait a minute, if we
concentrate on the experience and get the
students to understand that experience and strip their
notion of religion, of doctrine, and hierarchy, and
structure-- DM: Of God. JS: --well, not
necessarily of God, but maybe of the word God.
Because as Paul-- as Paul Tillich says, "If the word
gets in the way"-- DM: Ignore it. JS: --"It's
the depth-- it's the depth of being that you're"--
but-- but get to that experience, okay? And maybe
students-- could-- could find, through baseball, a
way of looking at religion differently. Not because I
wanted them to become religious, I just wanted
them to expand their way of-- and then finally 4.0,
which developed kind of towards the end with that
one student, but then when 20 were lined up outside my
d-- office, I-- I made it a course-- 12 years ago.
4.0 was wait a minute, the very slowness of
baseball, but the activity that occurs between the
lines. The-- the intricacy of it. The-- the fact that a
two-one count with a runner on base is different from a
two-one count than the first inning with no one on base.
DM: Can-- can we digress for one second? One of my
pet peeves is you can't watch a m-- Major League
Baseball game 'cause there are no silences. You're
constantly being entertained. You lose that
time in between the pitches where all the strategy is
going on. I don't like the Major League game.
JS: Well-- well, let me tell you-- DM: Go ahead, I'm
sorry. JS: --let me tell you something. I was once--
I was asked not long ago-- "If Jackie Robinson were to
come back today, what would he find most objectionable
about the game?" And there-- there were the obvious
things like the commercialization of it and
the steroids and so forth. But one that was on my list
that people don't think about is the one you just
raised. Professional baseball has now emulated
what basketball did 15 years ago. Noise. DM: Yup,
total. Total-- JS: Using the-- the blaring of noise.
So I-- I-- I get-- I gave up my season tickets for the
Knicks because you couldn't have a conversation with the
person sitting next to you. And now it's begun to happen
in baseball too-- DM: It's horrible.
JS: --with this noise. But there still is the capacity,
if you're an active fan, if you're engaged in a
conversation at least with yourself but maybe with
those that are with you as well, and-- and you can
still do that at Yankee Stadium with the person
that's seated next to you and maybe the person sitting
next to them, and certainly the person in front and
behind. And so what's gonna happen on this pitch? Should
we hit and run here? All those conversations--
DM: Right, right, oh yeah. JS: --that the more you
get away from the finger sec-- exercises of-- of
the-- of understanding the sport, and into the deep
symphony of it, you-- you-- it-- it-- those are the very
skills of the contemplative life, it turns out. This is
something that we're losing in modernity. It's why go
into the Grand Canyon as well as to baseball games.
We need to learn more to live slow. So-- so the
purpose of the course now is-- is all four of those
purposes, right up to 4.0. And-- and if the students
leave with nothing else, and it's interesting how many of
them say that they leave with this, it's the skill of
contemplation and noticing the small things.
DM: Ooh. Talk about some of the words that I used in the
beginning that I-- almost always mispronounced, and
how does that relate to baseball? Ineffable,
hierophany, et cetera. Go ahead, what-- what does that
mean-- JS: So-- so what we do is, we take tools that
I used to use with my students to study the
phenomena of religion. So we-- they read things like
Mircea Eliade, Rudolph Otto, William James-- DM: Oh,
god this is my reading list with you too-- JS: --so--
so-- so-- so the word hierophany is a word that--
that-- Eliade uses, and it means, literally in the
Greek, the sacred shining through. So-- when he
defines the sacred, I'm c-- remember, we're studying the
phenomena here, we're not being judgmental.
DM: Right, no, I get it. JS: So-- so when he defines the
sacred, he says, "The sacred is that which is not
profane, and the profane is that which is not sacred."
So it's a completely circular and subjective
definition. So now take this. I walk through the
wonderful vastness of the outback in Australia. And I
and my daughter, my son, are-- are-- are with a
native Australian guide. Now, the native Australian
culture is the oldest continuous civilization in
the world, 100,000 years. Their cave paintings
pre-date Altamira by 70,000, 80,000 years. They can't
even be carbon dated. So here's this wonderful guide
walking through the outback, this vastness of flat. And
suddenly, in front of us, there arises Uluru, what
westerners call Ayers Rock. This-- this wonderful,
everybody's seen at least a picture of it, this
wonderful, orange mountain, especially in the sun, as--
sunrise or sunset. And there it is, emerging, this
monolith out of this Outback. To him, this is
axis mundi. This is what connects this plane with
the-- with-- with-- with the transcendent plane. It's--
it truly is the pipe through which we move to another
dimension. To me, it's a beautiful natural artifact.
Now, if-- if we were to have with us a priest, and we
woulda stopped there in the sacredness of that moment
for him, and take out some bread and wine and
consecrated, to us, that moment when the words of
consecration were said as-- as Christians, would be
transformative. They-- they-- suddenly this bread
and wine would become the body and blood of the-- of
the savior. For him, it's still somethin' to eat after
you get-- (LAUGH) you get hungry. So here we have
these two experiences and-- and-- and-- and-- and this
is-- is what-- the students can take away, that word,
hierophany, you see, then can be taken away and
applied to baseball, and to the novels we read about
baseball. And then finally in the last two classes--
Tom Oliphant, who worked with me on this book, and
Doris Kearns Goodwin, who wrote the forward, and Pete
Hamill, my colleague at NYU-- DM: Snows in
August-- JS: --Snow in August, which the students
read. So the three of them join me, and they've got
four people who give testimony, this is what
religious communities do, to the faith of the Brooklyn
Dodgers. You know? And-- and-- and-- and they see the
same dynamic of hierophany, okay? And we claim that
there is this ineffable experience. So-- so this is
important, because you're at a research university, I'm
at a research university. The claim in the book is
that yes, there is the known, which great
universities impart. And there is the knowable, which
great universities like ours seek and expand
the-- kind of the-- of the known. This is what we do in
our lives, right? The knowable. And some of it we
won't know for 1,000 years, or in ways different from
the way we know. But then there is this third
category-- DM: Right, the unknown, right--
JS: --and that's the claim in the book, the unknowable,
which is ineffable. It can't be put in (UNINTEL). That's
the domain of religion and faith. That's your great
love affair with your wife, my great love affair with my
wife. This is the-- that-- that-- that can't be
expressed in cognitive terms. DM: You used that
love, that-- that intimacy with wife and-- and-- and--
and-- and the bond, that transcendent bond. But
what-- what is transcendent? what is-- what is beyond? Is
there-- is there consciousness in any way?
Is-- also-- again, let me just rant a little bit, your
God or the God of Paul Tillich is not the God of
St. Thomas the apossable-- apostle, Arch Bishop Malloy,
Brooklyn Prep, or St. Brendan's. So we're talking
about a different God, and a different, in a sense, way
to get to it? Go ahead-- JS: Well, the-- the--
the-- the title of the book, remember, is Baseball as a
Road to God, not the road to God. I don't know how-- you
know-- I-- married Lisa, who's Jewish and who wanted
to raise our children Jewish. So-- so our son Jed
and our daughter Katie are Jewish. And Jed married an
Italian Catholic who converted to Judaism, and
their three children are Jewish. DM: And you go to
mass every Sunday. JS: I go to mass, not every
Sunday, but I go to-- I go to mass-- frequently on
Sunday, frequently durin' the week. But-- but-- but
the-- the-- the point is, my-- my sister's husband--
my cousin, my-- my-- my-- my friend Mike Murray, who is--
you-- you know as-- as a kinda cousin in the family--
he says, "Not since Abraham has a gentile begat as many
Jews as I." So I'm the last one to put my religion in
someone else's face. I haven't done it with my
family. So-- I'm not gonna claim Catholicism is the
road, or that there's any particular way to describe
God. I will say my God is not an anthropomorphic God.
My-- my-- life beyond is not green pastures. Much of the
metaphor of religion is the sky above and-- hell below
and earth in the middle and heaven is in sky. And then
as-- as-- as-- as time went on, we began to stop talking
about God being up there and began to think of him being
out there. And then with Tillich we talk about--
DM: In there, right. JS: --God-- God in here,
and that's much closer to my-- my-- my notion. Now,
there are questions that literally, when asked,
literally can't be answered in cognitive terms. And one
of them is, "So describe it." Well, if the claim is
that it's ineffable, then inherently it can't be
described-- DM: You can't, right, okay.
JS: --so we're into the domain of faith. It's not something
of which I can convince a non-believer. But it's
something that I can believe deeply and order my life
around. So as you know, Lisa died very s-- suddenly six
years ago. Out of order, 'cause she was ten years
younger than me. But I experience her presence and
her love in my life daily. And I have faith--
DM: That what? JS: I have faith that there is
continuation of that in a way that's meaningful to the
two of us that I can't describe-- DM: Meaningful
to her too. JS: Yes. DM: As a her. JS: And
there will be when I pass this plane. DM: Wow, I
hope. JS: Yeah, well, it-- it's Pascal's wager, as
far as I'm concerned. DM: You're-- you're betting. Oh
yeah-- JS: I'm not betting, I just wouldn't--
it makes no sense to bet the other way. DM: Right,
right, 'cause you lose. (LAUGH) Right, I know it's--
it's game theory 101. Go ahead. JS: So you-- you
know, this is not-- this is not something that-- is--
is-- for those that demand everything be reduced to a
formula or to-- to words we can comprehend. DM: So
it's-- it's-- JS: But it's something that can be
deeply felt in the same way that love can be deeply felt
but can't be proven. Your wife did not reason you to
the fact that-- in fact, by every-- every indicator it
would be unreasonable for her to love you. DM: Well
yeah, in fact many people have commented (LAUGH) on
that, and you recognize that-- JS: And the same
with me too, we both-- we both-- she had the blessing
of having-- having married way above our heads.
DM: Yeah, and-- and-- and hit the cosmic jackpot, both of
us, and-- and we knew each other. Okay, so it is a road
to God. There are other roads to God. There's
poetry, there's music, there's sunsets, there's the
Grand Canyon. JS: I have-- DM: So it's a way
of obliquely looking at the world. JS: Exactly.
That's the lesson I think for the students. I-- in
fact-- this-- one of the readings that they do is--
Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea. And I happen to be
preparing for that class. They read-- they read
Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea, in which he says, "I
would like to-- I would like to fish," Santiago says to
the boy. "I would like to fish someday with the great
DiMaggio. His father was a fisherman, you know?" And
then they read simultaneously-- a gate to
Tulisa's great piece in The New Yorker about
DiMaggio as an old man. And-- and there-- there's
this wonderful, there are two haunting lines in that
piece about-- about DiMaggio. One is when he's
on his honeymoon with Marilyn Monroe in Japan. And
the local-- commander of the U.S. Forces finds out that--
Marilyn Monroe's there and asks her to come see the
troops. And Joe says, "Look, it's your honeymoon, you
know, if you wanna go, go." So she goes and she comes
back and he says, "How was it?" She said, "You wouldn't
believe it, Joe. It was wonderful. There were
100,000 people cheering for me. You've never seen
anything like it." (LAUGH) And he says, "Yes, I have"--
DM: Yes, I have, right. JS: --and then there's
this one other scene, haunting as well, where--
where Tulisa visits-- DiMaggio's older brother--
Vince. And-- and they used to say of the-- of the
DiMaggio brothers that-- that Joe was the best
hitter, Dom was the best fielder, and Vince was the
best singer. And-- and-- and he-- he's up-- north. He
never went into the family fishing business. And he's
up and he has a family, he's been married for decades,
he's got grandchildren. And in his closet is one suit. A
tailor-made suit made for Joe that Joe gave him and
he's never had altered. And Tulisa says to him, "Are you
jealous of Joe?" And he says, "Maybe Joe would like
to have what I have." And the juxtaposition of those
two-- those two books. You know, and as-- I was deep
sea fishing with my daughter and her fiancé as I was
preparing for that class, and-- and here I had the
normal experience of DiMaggio as the character,
and always Santiago and the boy, of course. But I also
had the experience of fishing. And there is a way
in which fishing is a contemplative sport too.
But what it doesn't have that baseball has, and this
is what baseball-- what makes baseball unique in
my-- in my view, it's not only got the timelessness,
it's not only got the contemplative-- moments-- as
well as these ecstatic, ineffable moments, like when
that final out is made in 1955, but what baseball has
too is this almost infinite kaleidoscope of variations
and possibilities, you know? And maybe it's that I don't
understand fishing, but I don't see it in fishing--
DM: No, it's not. JS: --even though I see many of
the same qualities. DM: No, and in fact, you
don't-- I-- I don't see it in any other sport,
including pro football, which is a very strategic
came-- JS: But keep in mind-- keep in mind that
this is what we, as Catholics, say about
Buddhism. So it may well be we just don't understand it.
DM: Well, this-- this very well may be the case.
Before we-- before-- let's move a little bit away from
baseball to what you have called allergies. And you
said it to Bill Moyers.
What-- what are these allergies that you were
talking about? You were talking about the-- the--
the changes you weren't particularly happy with in
society, the direction of society. JS: Well--
well-- we-- we've-- as-- especially in America, but
it's-- it's now, given America's cultural dominance
in the world, becoming more and more true around the
world, we've developed a societal allergy to nuance
and complexity. We-- we-- we love rankings. You know? I
think U.S. News and World Report is gonna put out a
ranking of religions soon. You know, which one is b--
DM: Yeah, well, let's develop some criteria right
here, go head. JS: Yeah, that's right. Well, first of
all, yours and mine would be number one-- DM: Well, I
don't know about-- I don't know about yours, mine
ain't. (LAUGH) Go ahead-- JS: But in any case, we--
we love nice, simple answers. Our politicians
speak in slogans. We d-- we don't like it when-- when--
when-- when they present us with complexity. And this--
this is not good. This is not good. And-- and it's--
it connects to the book in a way because it comes from
this-- this inability to see the intricate. We want
everything to be in bold letters. This-- this-- we've
created a hyper-stimulated society that-- that
overvalues immediate gratification, is unwilling
to make sacrifice for-- for the future-- and-- and
it's-- it's-- it's not for the good. And I think all of
us who care about ideas and c-- care about the depthness
of-- of humanity-- have to begin to push back.
DM: Yeah, and then you also-- and-- as part-- and in
another conversation with-- on CUNY TV with-- Richard
Heffner, you-- you-- you call the society one of
quantification, numerization, and the danger
is that not all that is important can be measured,
but what we measure becomes important. JS: This--
this-- a dangerous threat to education, because what
Charlie gave to me and what-- what ultimately--
playing him to you gave to you-- DM: Oh, absolutely,
yeah. JS: --is n-- is not quantifiable. Now-- now
we're an evidence-based society. I'm not saying do
away with evidence. The-- the analogy in baseball
would be sabermetrics. Okay? Gotta use it, but it's not
everything-- DM: It ain't the game. It ain't the
game-- JS: --it's not-- you-- you cannot capture
Derek Jeter or, god forbid, Jackie Robinson in the
statistics only. DM: You can't. You can't. Not at
all. Oh, John, it's wonderful always.
JS: Great Doug, good to see you. DM: My thanks to
friend John Sexton for being on the show. Join us next
week when my guest will be Michael Moss, Pulitzer Prize
winner and author of Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food
Giants Hooked Us, here on CUNY TV. Excellent John,
thank you. JS: Thank you.