Baseball And The Meaning Of Life by Josh Leventhal - Book Review

As with all reviews on this website, our goal is not to provide a complete overview of the book; rather, it is to examine how the book relates to the meaning of life.

The book Baseball And The Meaning Of Life by Josh Leventhal was published in 2005. The book uses quotes about baseball to show that although the sport may be a game, and not only is it one of America's favorite pastimes, but there are humorous lessons learned while playing, coaching, and watching.

We couldn't find any reviews on major websites, e.g., Amazon, ThriftBooks, LibraryThing, etc. So, we decided to give it a go.

The book consists of 96 pages, most of which have photos or illustrations of baseball, often humorous or outrageous in nature, along with a quote. Outside of living life and learning lessons, the book essentially has little to no philosophical content. Some examples of quotes include:

A few million years from now the sun will burn out and lose its gravitational pull. The earth will turn into a giant snowball and be hurled through space. When that happens, it won't matter if I get this guy out. - Bill "Spaceman" Lee (okay this one is deeper than most in the book)

Somebody's gotta win and somebody's gotta lose, and I believe in letting the other guy lose. - Pete Rose

If you don't have outstanding relief pitching, you might as well piss on the file and call the dogs. - Whitey Herzog

Any time you think you have the game conquered, the game will turn around and punch you right in the nose. - Mike Schmidt

Overall, we didn't find the majority of the photos or quotes that funny or interesting. Even if you are a fan of baseball, this one might be a bit of a stretch.

We rate the book the following:

Overall - 2

Meaning of Life Relevance - 1

Uniqueness – 1

If you doubt the uniqueness of this book, consider there are also books called the New York Yankees and the Meaning of life, Boston Red Sox and the Meaning of Life, The New York Mets and the Meaning of Life, and probably many more.

Did you read the book? If so, what did you think? What did we miss?