"Unrestrained by time,

baseball encourages, almost requires in its most meaningful moments, an appreciation of living slowly and in the moment; the kind of differentiated experience that separates the sacred in life from the profane. This experience is where religion begins. As Rabbi Heschel wrote, it “is not a feeling for the mystery of living, or a sense of awe, wonder, or fear, which is the root of religion; but rather the question what to do with the feeling for the mystery of living, what to do with awe, wonder, or fear.” In a way, baseball’s window into the nature of religious experience is more revelatory, frankly, than the window offered by much of organized religion. There are difficulties, of course, associated with the word religion— and much evil has come from attempting to take the religious experience and “explain” it— that is, to codify it in dogma. Wars have erupted over that dogma. A lust for power and greed has allowed the sanctification of the material world in God’s name: How high is one’s steeple? How much gold is in one’s chalice? All this for the greater glorification of something that is quite profane— something that can be labeled God but is anything but God in the sense that the greatest thinkers and lovers of religion use the word.

Sexton, John; Oliphant, Thomas; Schwartz, Peter J. (2013-03-07). Baseball as a Road to God: Seeing Beyond the Game (p. 219). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.