A Couple of *First Things* Essays on Sports

In the first, David Bentley Hart waxes metaphysical about baseball, while in the second James Nuechterlein offers a more restrained blessing on sports in a general way. (Nuechterlein expresses considerably less enthusiasm about baseball, but both writers are in concord when it comes to their dislike of the New York Yankees.)

Both articles are interesting in their own right, and in their potential application to chess. Is chess a "perfect game" in any sense resembling Hart's understanding of baseball? Or is it just a minor grace along the lines of Nuechterlein's musing about sports, or something in between?