Thomas Bunting - What Can Baseball Tell Us About Politics?

In this episode of The Curious Task, host Alex Aragona interviews Thomas Bunting, associate professor of political science and author of Democracy at the Ballpark, about the deep connections between baseball and democratic politics. Bunting argues that politics is not confined to formal institutions but is deeply embedded in everyday life, particularly through spectatorship and fandom. Drawing on historical and philosophical insights—from ancient Greek athletics to modern baseball—Bunting shows how sports like baseball function as political spaces where community, equality, virtue, and storytelling emerge. He challenges the notion that spectatorship is passive, instead framing it as an active, civic engagement that fosters democratic values. The conversation explores how baseball reflects societal tensions around race and inclusion, cultivates virtues like fairness and courage, and resists the dehumanizing effects of technological reductionism in sports analytics. Ultimately, Bunting emphasizes that meaningful political life is not reserved for elites but is created by ordinary people in shared cultural experiences.