By John Sexton, Gotham Books, 232 pages, $27.50

Before he was president of New York University and dean of its Law School, John Sexton was a student of comparative religion, chair of the Religion Department at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, and debate coach at a Catholic girls’ school. Calling on his storehouse of knowledge from those experiences, he has written a book about religion and baseball, and the connections he sees between them.