NYU President John Sexton's book “Baseball as a Road to God” was released on March 7.

“Baseball as a Road to God” is based on a course that Sexton taught at NYU for more than ten years. Grace Patterson, a senior who took the class in New York, explained, “the class is about exploring what exactly religion is by repeatedly asking whether baseball can evoke experiences like religious experience."

As told in the first chapter, an NYU student told Sexton that baseball “is silly and I don't understand why anybody would waste time on it.” Sexton then crafted an independent study for the student, promising that it will help the student “realize that baseball is a road to God.'

Other students showed interest in the independent study and it grew into a seminar.

“The most valuable thing that I got out of the class was a relationship with John,” Patterson said. For other students, the course was a challenge to probe further into their own religious understanding. Patterson observed that some of her classmates “went through profound changes in the way they saw the world through the class,” she said. “People of faith and skeptics alike came out with a deeper appreciation of the variety of religious experience.”

The progression of Sexton's concept from a single-student independent study to a popular seminar course at NYU now continues with the publication of his book. Last year, Sexton admitted to NYUAD students his nervousness over the reception of his book by various reviewers.

The book cover blurb of “Baseball as a Road to God,” with its list of glowing reviews, indicates a positive reception of the book. Among these reviewers is Ronald Dworkin, an American philosopher who is a frequent commentator for The New York Review of Books, praised Sexton for writing “beautifully about the magic of baseball... [and] with great insight about the intense-felt character of religious perception.”

The message of the book, however, can sometimes be unclear.

On March 7, Sexton appeared on The Colbert Report to discuss the book. Asked about the strange correlation between baseball and God, Sexton explained that the term ineffable is at the core of “Baseball as a Road to God.”

“The meaning of life,” Sexton said, “is ineffable. It can't be reduced to words. We experience it.”

Talk show host Stephen Colbert responded that the use of the term ineffable allows a person to have no basis for argument other than, “I can't explain it, I'm right though.”

The interview, Patterson said, is not to be taken seriously.

“It's Colbert's job to turn everything his subject says into a punch line,” Patterson explains, “which makes it hard to have an actual conversation with him.”

“The book, at base, offers a version of Charlie's invitation to ‘play another octave of the piano,’ in this case urging the reader to use baseball as a vehicle for learning how to ‘live slow,’ taking the time to notice the majesty below the surface of what appears to be mundane,” Sexton said in a personal interview with The Gazelle. “Baseball, a sport without time clocks and a sport of infinite variety, is a medium for learning the skills of a fully contemplative life.”

Sexton's reference to Charlie seldom needs further explanation within the NYUAD community. Sexton often talks about Charlie, his mentor during high school, in a speech at NYUAD Candidate Weekends.

To an NYUAD student opening the book, the Sexton’s presence is clear: the book is dedicated to Sexton's late wife: “Lisa, who showed us the way and for Jed and Katie, who walk it.”

As Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote in the foreword: “storytelling is at the heart of this book.”

The personal character of Sexton is imbedded in the book, perhaps most memorably in the opening story of Sexton as a schoolboy, rushing home from school with his friend to kneel before the radio broadcast of Game Seven of the 1995 World Series and pray for victory. As “Baseball as a Road to God” translates from a seminar to a book, it does not lose the personal connection with Sexton that many of his students value.

“Baseball as a Road to God” is beginning to meet response from the NYUAD community. The hardcover is currently stocked in the DTC bookstore, and one copy is ordered for the library. Julie Avina, Dean of Students at NYUAD, began to read with a few students, who will meet on March 31 to discuss the book.

For some, however, the book does not spark interest. Bryan Waterman, professor of literature at NYUAD, does not plan to read the book.

“I'm not really a baseball or a God person,” he explained.

NYUAD students have started talks of a book launch event in Abu Dhabi, which may be scheduled later in the Spring semester.