The Christian College Baseball All-Stars: Pitchers

In Monday afternoon’s post on Christian college alumni I observed that those schools seem to do surprisingly well — given their typically small sizes — at placing former students in professional sports. One sport in particular: In fact, you could build at least a mediocre major league baseball roster with nothing but players who spent at least a year or … More The Christian College Baseball All-Stars: Pitchers

Who Are the Most Surprising Christian College Alumni?

Until he died last night, I had no idea that horror film director Wes Craven had graduated from Wheaton College. (He discussed his fundamentalist Baptist upbringing and his decision to flee from it in a 2011 interview with the New York Times Magazine.) Of course, this got me wondering: who else would I be surprised to learn … More Who Are the Most Surprising Christian College Alumni?

“Venality, slavery, and gangsterism”: Soviet Perceptions of Baseball’s Golden Age

Maybe it’s just that the Twins are off to a terrible start, but I was especially tickled to come across this in Alan Ball’s new Liberty’s Tears: Soviet Portraits of the “American Way of Life” During the Cold War: Permeated with the spirit of venality, slavery, and gangsterism, contemporary American baseball maims hundreds of young lives and serves … More “Venality, slavery, and gangsterism”: Soviet Perceptions of Baseball’s Golden Age

Does Passion Distract from Calling?

Baseball is my favorite sport. Field of Dreams is my favorite movie about my favorite sport. Well, not really — it’s Bull Durham. But I like Kevin Costner’s second-best baseball movie well enough that I was all cued up to enjoy Jeffrey Huston’s recent On Faith post arguing that Field of Dreams — a quarter-century old this year — “is nothing short of … More Does Passion Distract from Calling?

That Was The Week That Was

Thanks to G.W. Carlson (paying tribute to Baptist geneticist Elving Anderson) and Jared Burkholder (shedding light on the history of the prosperity gospel) for keeping this blog from total inactivity while I extended my break from blogging to work on an article due next Tuesday. Elsewhere this past week in the blogosphere… • Courtesy of the Pew Research Center, here’s … More That Was The Week That Was