"Did you know that baseball is uniquely a 'forensic' game about allocating credit or blame? Or that performance enhancing drugs are no more disreputable than Tommy John surgery? Alva No , a philosopher in the bleachers, is not always convincing but is invariably interesting. And he does what a philosopher should do: When you finish this slender volume you will have a new way of seeing familiar things." George F. Will
"Whether it's his contention that baseball isn't slow enough, his logic on the fallacy of PEDs or his thoughts on why it's OK for adults to crave a ball tossed into the stands, Alva No wields a philosopher's wit and wisdom to cut through modern sports' recycled rhetoric and arrive at a place we all should be: that baseball is life, it's love and it's damn near perfect." Jeff Passan, ESPN MLB Insider and author of The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports
"America's national game is an invitation to philosophical reflection. Berkeley professor Alva No takes up the challenge with insight and wit and shows how baseball casts light on life, language, history, and being bored. This book will delight baseball fans and the philosophically minded in equal measure." David Papineau, University College London and author, Knowing the Score: What Sports Can Teach Us about Philosophy
"This is a delightful book. If you love baseball, or if you want to love baseball, you will love this book. No thin ks hard about baseball and shows us just how important thinking is to this beautiful game, and how much thinking through baseball can inform our lives. His reflections call to mind not only Roger Angell, but C.L.R. James on cricket." Jay L. Garfield, Smith College