Let there be baseball - but which side is God's?

The language of baseball is often theological. People compare ballparks to cathedrals, and talk about how attending games in places like the Cubs' Wrigley Field is akin to a religious experience. And in the ultimate nod to God, even the word "fan" derives from a Latin word meaning "inspired by a deity."

As they do to religion, people have a huge emotional attachment to the game, suggests Mr. Barra, who was induced by all the curse talk to write about God in a recent column for Slate.

If the idea of God being a fan of a single team seems far-fetched, look no further than ancient texts for historical precedent, wrote Cathleen Falsani in a recent Chicago Sun-Times column. "If the stories from Hebrew scripture are true, God may love everybody, but God does have favorites."

Someone who has thought for a long time - two decades - about which team God prefers is Arnold Kanter, a Cubs fan and the author of the books exploring whether God is one, too. By process of elimination, he's deduced that God probably either favors the Red Sox or the Cubs.

In an argument sure to get him barred from New York for life, Mr. Kanter suggests that the Yankees are not God's pick. "Could people really believe in a God who might even be a Yankee fan?" he jokes in an interview, saying the concept needs no further explanation. Teams with domed stadiums are not in the running, either, he writes (the fancy roofs block access to heaven). God wouldn't choose a newer team, because he'd have been rooting for years before they were around, and the Almighty is too politically correct to opt for teams that offend native Americans.

Not everyone agrees with that assessment, of course. Dr. Mouw, for example, suggests that God doesn't "root" for a team so to speak, but he does delight in good physical contests - ones where people display the kinds of talents and abilities that are part of His creation.

Rather than taking sides, when a player on any team hits one out of the park, "I think God looks down and says, 'That's one of the reasons why I made this world,' " explains Mouw.

Kanter is hoping this is the year the question asked in the title of his book will be answered definitively. It's one he's been pondering in speeches he gives at his synagogue's open mike on the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur every year for the past 20.

In his first talk back in 1984, he predicted that the proof of God's existence would be in the Cubs making it out of the playoffs and into the World Series that year. He revisited the topic this year: "My prediction was just a little bit early."

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