Movies and the Church of Baseball

Christian religious imagery and symbolism has a long history in American baseball cinema, from The Busher (1919) to Angels in the Outfield(1994) and present-day movies. This book examines The Natural, Field of Dreams, Bull Durham and other films, exploring the frequency of Christian imagery and themes in the American baseball movie. From Babe Ruth’s performance of a miracle to help a disabled boy walk again in The Babe Ruth Story to Shoeless Joe Jackson’s question to Ray Kinsella—”Is this heaven?”—in Field of Dreams, Christian themes and American baseball film are inextricably linked. This discussion encompasses symbolic imagery in mainstream film, Christian baseball movies directed by Christian filmmakers promoting their faith messages and images of America as a prelapsarian paradise before “The Fall.”

Jonathan Plummer is a senior lecturer in film and television at Solent University, Southampton, England. He lives near Winchester.

Jonathan Plummer
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 199
Bibliographic Info: 44 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2025
pISBN: 978-1-4766-7655-5
eISBN: 978-1-4766-5380-8
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments ix

Preface 1

Introduction 3

1. Play Ball: The Films 11

2. Diamonds on the Cross: Baseball’s Connections   with Christianity 50

3. Depictions of “Other” Religious Practices in Baseball Films 61

4. God, the Bat, the Ball and the Bottle in Christian Cinema 72

5. The Fathers and the Sons: Christian Cinema Baseball Films   and the “Fatherhood Crisis” 96

6. The Fall, the Desire for a Return to the Prelapsarian Ideal   and the Whitewash: The Past as It Will Be 129

Conclusions 161

Chapter Notes 165

Bibliography 179

Index 182