Birthday greetings

Birthday greetings go out to Jerry Klinkowitz, today. Klinkowitz is the author of Short Season and Other Stories (Johns Hopkins: 1988) and Basepaths (Johns Hopkins: 1995). The former is a collection of stories about a fictional minor league team in Iowa. These stories were novelized in Basebpaths.

Klinkowitz was a member of the ownership group of the now-defunct Waterloo Diamonds (Midwest League) from 1978 to 1994. He wrote of his experiences in Writing Baseball (Illinois: 1991)*. His fictional works drew from his time with the Diamonds.

Currently a professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa, Klinkowitz is also a noted authority on the works of Kurt Vonnegut.


* reprinted in 1999 by Southern Illinois as Owning a Piece of the Minors.

Leading Off: Opening Lines, Part 3

"It's when you're good that they throw at your head."

"In the summer of my thirty-seventh year, when the air began leaking so conspicuously from my life that remaining oblivious to it soon required my full attention, my father fell into a pig-rendering fire and, of his unspeakable injuries, perished."

"From the dugout where Grouchy sat, the whole field spread itself out before him, the diamond not a diamond at all but what it really was, a square with players at every corner."

"This was supposed to be a book about losers."

"It was bad enough going 0-for-5 and committing a dumb-ass error that led to two unearned runs in the bottom of the ninth that beat you."

"My name is Gideon Clark and, like my father before me, I have on more than one occasion been physically ejected from the corporate offices of the Chicago Cubs Baseball Club, which are located at Wrigley Field 1060 West Addison, in Chicago."

"They were the laughing boys of the American League."



(Strike Three You're Dead, Rosen; Blue Ruin, Boyd; Keystone Kids, Tunis; All G.O.D.S. Children, Craig; The Dreyfuss Affair, Lefcourt; The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, Kinsella; The Seventh Babe, Charyn.)

Birthday wishes

Ohio native and author of Veracruz Blues (1996), author Mark Winegarnder turns 49 today. Veracruz Blues is often included in lists of the best written baseball novels. Winegardner did his homework on this one in fictionalizing the Mexican Baseball League's attempt to lure American players south shortly after World War II.

His other baseball works include a couple of non-fiction titles: Prophet of the Sandlot (1990), about Major League scout Tony Lucadello's last season, and The 26th Man (1991), co-authored with, and about, minor league journeyman Steve Fireovid.

In addition to numerous short stories and articles, Winegarnder is also the author of several other non-baseball novels, including Crooked River Burning (2001) and The Godfather Returns (2004). Winegardner is on the faculty at Florida State.

The end of baseball as we knew it

Joining similar works such as Man on Spikes and Chance, there is Season's End (Little, Brown & Co: 1992), by Tom Grimes. Like the aforementioned novels, Season's End is a career study of a star player. In the case of Season's End, the player is infielder Mike Williams: the "best pure singles hitter", ever. Grimes re-tells Williams while navigating through the tumultuous period in baseball from the mid-1970s to the beginning of the 1980s. When we are introduced to Williams we find him re-signing his contract just as the reserve clause is overturned in Federal Court. From this point on Williams' life in baseball changes dramatically. As Williams describes his ordeals with trying to earn what he's worth, struggling through slumps, the demands from his team, his agent, and his family, we are also cast back to stories of where Williams came from and how he ended up in the situation he finds himself.

Mike Williams is a complicated character. On one hand he is a rather simple individual, only wanting to play baseball his way: one base hit at a time. He appreciates the money he receives, but does not exhibit the level of greed others have (or wish Williams to possess). But Williams is also very introspective. He sees the beauty of the game; that it was timeless and could conceivably go on forever. And he sees through the various games both his agent and team owner play to one-up each other over salary and public relations. He also displays moments of weakness in regards to women and other vices, yet recognizes the self-destructive nature of his actions.

While Season's End is about the life and times of a major league ballplayer, it is equally a tale of how the end of the reserve clause and the emergence of free agency affected the game of baseball. Agents moved to the forefront and players became grossly overpaid as owners were faced with bidding against each other. And, with higher salaries came demands by the fans to see perfection. As Williams, himself, puts it: "The money, the greed, the insatiable appetite of the fans -- they became larger than the game, the field ceasing to be a sanctuary and become, instead, a place to dwell on our bitterness and frustration." In effect, baseball as Williams knew it, was over.

Birthday greetings

Birthday greetings go out to Michael Bishop (11/12), author of Brittle Innings (Bantam: 1994). Bishop is an accomplished and award winning author and poet, primarily in the science fiction genre. His account of baseball in segregation-era Georgia, though, in Brittle Innings is outstanding. And, in my opinion, Brittle Innings is one of those works in baseball fiction that should be included in a Top 20 (if not Top 10) list of the genre. Bishop's writing style, his development of a wide range of different characters, and unique story line, make Brittle Innings one of my favorites. Bishop has often focused on humanity and the human condition, and Brittle Innings is no exception.

Veterans' Day

A day late, but here's a salute to our veterans. In baseball fiction, we can add the following to the list of those who have served our country.

There's Roy Tucker⁽¹⁾, pitcher for the John Tunis' fictional Brooklyn Dodgers who was shot down over France and returned after the war to lead his team to the World Series). Rick Norman's Jax "Gooseball" Fielder⁽²⁾, pitcher for the St. Louis Browns, was also shot down - over Japan - and tried to help out a Japanese father see his son realize a baseball dream amidst the closing days of World War II. Army Air Corps. members feature prominently in baseball novels. In Jumpin' Jimminy⁽³⁾An entire B-17 flight crew takes up baseball in neutral Sweden after their damaged plane has to make an emergency landing there after a raid over Germany. As part of their detainment, they take on the crew of a similarly stranded crew of a Japanese submarine.

From the ranks of those who served in earlier wars we have General Oakhart, commissioner of the fictional Patiot League in Philip Roth's The Great American Novel⁽⁴⁾, and the members of Company L, 14th Brooklyn Regiment who play a series of games against their Confederate foes during the 1864 Overland Campaign⁽⁵⁾. From the Confederate side, there is Joseph "Rebel Joe" Tyler⁽⁶⁾ who as a prisoner of war uses his baseball skills to escape, but later stars with the Terryville (NY) Niners after the war. In a similar story, we have Win McNaughton⁽⁷⁾, a Union prisoner in a Confederate prison camp in Texas, who uses baseball to survive and later prosper after the war.

Finally, from the non-player ranks we have Joe Tinker and Joseph Burke. Donald Honig's Joe Tinker⁽⁸⁾, a postwar newsreporter and World War II veteran, investigates a murder which will lead him to conspiracy surrounding Jackie Robinson's breakthrough year with the Dodgers. Robert D. Parker's character, Joseph Burke⁽⁹⁾ is a former marine, and wounded veteran of the Battle of Guadalcanal, who becomes bodyguard to Jackie Robinson during that same season.


⁽¹⁾ The Kid Comes Back, John Tunis, Morrow: 1946
⁽²⁾ Fielder's Choice, Rick Norman, August House: 1991
⁽³⁾ Jumpin' Jimminy - A World War II Baseball Saga, iUniverse: 2004
⁽⁴⁾ The Great American Novel, Philip Roth, Henry Holt & Co.: 1991
⁽⁵⁾ Play for a Kingdom, Thomas Dyja, Harcourt Brace: 1997
⁽⁶⁾ Perfect Silence, Jeff Hutton, Breakaway Books: 2000
⁽⁷⁾ Camp Ford, Johnny D. Boggs, Thorndike: 2006
⁽⁸⁾ The Plot to Kill Jackie Robinson, Donald Honig, Dutton: 1992
⁽⁹⁾ Double Play, Rober D. Parker, Berkley Books: 2005

Chance

If Steve Shilstone’s Chance (Breakaway Books : 1996) were written in the third person it could be termed a lighter, gentler The Natural (or perhaps it would be more comparable to the movie version of that novel). Chance is the story of phenom shortstop Chance Caine who breaks into the Majors at age 18 and plays 22 seasons with the fictional Lions of the National League. Along the way, he amasses 21 Gold Glove Awards, plays in several World Series, and hits .400. The story is told years later, after Caine’s retirement, by a self-proclaimed “old weird guy poet” who Caine has asked to write his story. During the course of the novel, we are introduced to various people who have been a part of Caine’s life, including teammates, coaches, wives, lovers, and radio announcers. And we are treated to the story of Caine's life through these characters, as well as through Caine's own words. Featured is Caine’s meteoric rise to stardom, his marriages, and his feats on the diamond.

The comparison to The Natural is present, of course. Similar to Roy Hobbs’ encounter with Harriet Bird, Caine is seduced by a young girl (“I want you because you’re going to be in the Hall of Fame”); and Caine is also shot (but not by his lover, and not with a silver bullet) so he will go out “on top”. But Chance Caine is not Roy Hobbs. While Caine knows he’s good (“I am the best ever to play my position”), there is no arrogance or self-proclaimed destiny about his situation. He is a likeable, and loved, character, even if a little quirky. And there is no darkness to the story, no sudden downfall. Caine plays until he’s 40 and then walks away – on his own terms; his skills by that time already declining (errors mounting and batting average falling). Caine leaves the game on his own terms, marrying a supermodel who doesn’t know anything about baseball, but whom Caine has recognized as his ultimate soul mate (despite spending the previous 20 years married to someone else).

While the story is narrated in a light, humorous tone, it is not overdone. The novel is sprinkled with excerpts from Caine’s diary, which was recorded during his last season with the Lions. This mechanism allows Shilstone to further develop Caine's character. And added to the voices of Caine’s peers the “personal” feel of the story is enhanced, as well. Chance is less a lighter The Natural than it is a combination of Man on Spikes with a dash of Almost Famous and a measure of Mark Harris’ Henry Wiggen. While not on the caliber of Man on Spikes, or Harris’ novels, Chance is worth the read. It is a fun and entertaining read.

A monster on the diamond: Henry Clerval

Playing first base for the 1943 Highbridge (GA) Hellbenders in Michael Bishop's Brittle Innings (Bantam: 1994) is Henry "Jumbo" Clerval - a 7' soft-spoken, yet highly intelligent vegetarian pacifist. Oh, and he's also a monster - literally. According to Clerval own admission, he's the monster created by Victor Frankenstein and immortalized by Mary Shelly some 125 years earlier. Following his last-known appearance at the pole, he took the name of Frankenstein's best friend, and made his way to America where he determined that baseball was the best method for assimilating into society and learning to become human.

Clerval is a complex character, particularly because of his pieced-together origins. His features, apart from his exceptional height, resemble a set of slightly mismatched puzzle pieces put together: "His face was out of alignment somehow, like a pumpkin cut in two and put back together wrong." He is described as a "disjointed wreck" where shoulders, elbows, knees, and head jutted awkwardly and made it seem that he was one step away from unhinging and falling apart. Because of this, he found that children, women, and a few men were uncomfortable around him and would avoid his presence. Dogs also didn't like him, and there are numerous passages where his passing evokes(?) their barking. Despite his mixed "assembly", Clerval is actually a well-grounded individual. He's not entirely comfortable with his non-humanity, but he knows his limitations.

Henry Clerval is not the mute, grunting monster as portrayed by Boris Karloff, but rather the monster of Shelly's creation. He has a deep, articulate voice (not unlike the voice of actor Brad Garrett, IMO). His extensive vocabulary comes from reading "philosophy, science, religion, medicine, Victorian novels, and current
events."

As a player, Clerval is all arms and legs. Because of his lack of speed and agility, he plays a deep first base, standing on the grass behind the bag that able to snag ground balls that would otherwise get by him. Despite being slow and rather awkward, he is a presence at the plate and makes his hits count. He leads the league in home runs and eventually receives attention of the parent club for a late season call-up.

Clerval serves as a stabilizing influence, despite his eccentricities, for protagonist Daniel Boles. Boles is assigned as Henry's roommate and has his own demons he is battling. Henry, of course, has a number of secrets in addition to his origin that have Boles wondering about until Henry finally feels comfortable enough to start answering. Henry's experiences with the Hellbenders become intertwined
with that of Boles until a circumstances result in violence and tragedy. In the end, though, Clerval has impact and influence on Boles eventual reconciliation with his past, while Boles' loyalty and friendship help Henry move closer to realizing what he has longed to become: a real person.

Happy Halloween!


Looking for other possible Halloween baseball treats? Try one of the following:

Child's Play, by Sal Conte
Tartabull's Throw, by Henry Garfield
Southpaw, by Frank King
Blockade Billy or The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Stephen King

The Fall Classic

World Series, by John R. Tunis (Harcourt Brace: 1941)

In Tunis' sequel to The Kid From Tomkinsville (Harcourt Brace: 1940), Roy Tucker and his Brooklyn teammates took on Cleveland and their ace hurler, Gene Miller (modeled after Indian Bob Feller). The fictional series went seven action- and drama-filled games, including attempts to cheat, beanings, and sensational home run saving catches. Tunis, of course, had the Dodgers take the Series (4 games to 3). The Dodgers appeared in the actual 1941 Series, but lost to the Yankees. (During the 1940 season, the Dodgers and Indians each finished second in their respective leagues, and when crafting his second Tucker novel, Tunis may have thought the two would have a good chance at meeting in the series).

Here are a few other novels that include World Series play:
Curveball, Kate Angell
Blue Ruin, Brendan C. Boyd
The Greatest Slump of All Time, David Carkeet
This is Next Year, Philip Goldberg
A Pennant for the Kremlin, Paul Malloy
Just Joe: Baseball's Natural, as Told by His Wife, Thomas Perry
How I Helped the Chicago Cubs (Finally!) Win the World Series, Harper Scott
The Final Game, Robert W. Shoemaker
Hoopla, Harry Stein
Killing the Curse, Jeff Stratton

Good luck to the Giants and Rangers in this year's championship.

Owls and Mockingbirds

Miles Wolff's Season of the Owl (Stein and Day: 1980) is a mystery and a coming of age tale set in the 1950s. The story is reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird; racial tension and murder swirl around behind the life of a young protagonist. In Mockingbird, Scout is that young person dealing with growing up. In Season of the Owl, Tom (whose last name is never revealed), is the nephew of Centerville Owls general manager, Will Hilton. The 1958 Owls play in the Class B Carolina League and are like an extended family to Tom, whose father left him and his mother when he was a child. His mother, not able to care for him, has sent him to live with his uncle.

Despite Tom's description of Centerville as the fifth largest city in North Carolina, there is more of a small-town feeling to Centerville from the moment the novel begins. But it is the team and its stadium that are, actually, the "small town" in Wolff's novel. Tom's school friends run the scoreboard (including a mechanical owl that pops up from behind the outfield fence when a home run is hit) and sell concessions. Will's girlfriend keeps the books, and the star right fielder is a close friend of both Will and Tom. And the batboy is the son of the local councilman.

Like To Kill a Mockingbird, there is a black housekeeper whose role parallels that of Calpurnia. Her role, combined with the team's ticket-taker, Mr. Johnson, is to link the main characters to the real-world events of desegregation just beginning to spark outside the stadium gates. How Will, and the Owls ownership, deals with these changes will affect the future of the franchise.

Wolff is adept at describing the day-to-day activities of running a minor league team, which comes from experience.* We get to see the behind-the-scenes running of the team through the winter and into the season. Players fret about making it to the next level all the while the team's viability is threatened because of boycotts by black leaders. At the same time, there is an investigation underway following the discovery of a body just outside the outfield wall. Who was killed and why are questions that answered slowly during the course of the story.

Through all this, Tom leads the life of a teenager - or at least the life of one who helps run the local baseball team. His story appears to be told from a distant future, remembrances of this season, but Wolff also attempts to set the tale in that year, as if Tom doesn't know what happened, or will happen.

Season of the Owl is a literary work in the same vein as Veteran's Park (Don J. Snyder, 1987) and The Brothers K (David James Duncan, 1992). The story is not necessarily about baseball, but baseball is the vehicle used to bind the characters together and help move the plot along to its ultimate destination. Wolff uses this mechanism well and the book is enjoyable, if not a little slow-paced at times.



* Miles Wolff is a former general manager of several teams in the south, and owned the Durham Bulls, as well as several other teams. He is currently commissioner of the independent Can-Am League and American Association.

Casey at the Bat

Ernest L. Thayer’s poem, “Casey at the Bat” (1888), is not the earliest piece of baseball fiction, but it is likely the best known of the 19th Century, if not of all time. When it was first published in the San Francisco Examiner, it received little attention, but today it is one of the most recognizable poems in American literature. It is a rather short (13 stanzas), concise poem in which each line presents a vivid image of the moment. The poem’s brevity, however, has resulted in a number of unanswered questions: Who was Mudville playing? Was Casey modeled after an actual person? What was Casey’s story, and what happened to him after the game? Since its original publication, many authors and poets have expounded on the original, whether to address unanswered questions, or satisfy some deep-seeded need to see Casey redeemed.

In 1906, sportswriter Grantland Rice penned a sequel, “Casey’s Revenge”, where Casey – now nicknamed “Strike-out” - is given a second chance. In Rice’s story, the team goes into a slump in the days following their famed loss. But in a rematch against the same pitcher a few weeks later, and their team trailing 4-1 in the last inning, Casey gets his redemption: he hits the ball with three men on, to win the game. Rice was such a fan of the poem that he actually wrote a couple of other related poems about Casey, including “Mudville’s Fate” (1910) in which the town folds up after the failure of their team to win.

Two years after "Casey's Revenge", Clarence McDonald of the San Francisco Examiner wrote “Casey – Twenty Years Later”, a poem that features Casey sitting in the stands watching a game when the catcher is hurt and can’t play any longer; Casey volunteers to bat for him with predictable results.

Casey’s restoration from goat to hero is a common theme. Burgess Fitzpatrick’s novella, Casey’s Redemption (Greenwich Book Publishers: 1958) features a grandson making up for Casey’s strikeout by making a winning play. In Dan Gutman’s Casey Back at Bat (HarperCollins: 2009) the great hitter gets a second chance and hits the pitch so hard that it not only travels out of the park, but around the world. An odd tale of Casey’s redemption is “Mighty Casey’s Ghost”, in which Casey returns from the dead to relive the moment of his failure.

On the poem’s 100th anniversary, sportswriter Frank DeFord posed an alternative telling of Casey at the Bat (Sports Illustrated, July 18, 1988) which created a back-story for Casey with that of the song “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” He later expanded his article to book form called Casey on the Loose: What Really Might Have Happened (Viking: 1989). In DeFord’s retelling, Casey has a number of adventures in Boston that lead him to that fateful at-bat. In DeFord’s version, Casey strike’s out on a passed ball and the winning runs actually score to give Mudville the win.

From an alternative perspective, there are the works that try and address who may have struck Casey out. Robert Coover, who wrote The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., Jerry Waugh, Prop. (Random House: 1968) penned the short story “McDuff on the Mound” (The Iowa Review: Fall 1971), similarly is Thomas Fronchowiak’s poem, “Thatcher on the Hill” (Baseball Almanac: 2008) And an anonymous author calling himself (or herself) Sparkus, wrote “The Man Who Fanned Casey” sometime around the time DeWolf Hopper made his recording of the Thayer poem. In this work, the pitcher’s name was Hagen and hails from Frogtown. Interestingly, his catcher is named Thatcher.

There's something about this poem that makes it timeless. Countless retellings have been produced, in prose, book, on film and on television, that both retell the original, expound upon it, or re-create it in another setting (sometime, take a look at the Twighlight Zone re-do). Perhaps it's because it's a tale of failure that intrigues us, rather than one of expected success.

Listen to DeWolf Hopper reciting "Casey at the Bat"

Birthday greetings

Pete Fromm, author of How This All Started (Picador: 2000), celebrates a birthday today. Fromm is a four-time winner of the Pacific Northwest Writers Award, including one for How This All Started.

Fromm is also a prolific writer of short stories (over 100). He currently is on the faculty at Pacific University.

Matti Sternweiss: faith and destiny behind the plate

Sandy Koufax sat out a World Series game instead of working on Yom Kippur. He did, however pitch regularly on the Sabbath during the season. Matti Sternweiss, the central character in Allen Hoffman's Big League Dreams (Abbeville Press: 1997) does not have quite that level of religious conviction when we are introduced to him at the beginning of the novel. An immigrant from Poland, Matti - or "Sirdy" as he's known in the baseball world - has grown up with baseball and sees a clear separation between the two. He has always determined what he wanted to do and then gone and done it.

Big League Dreams is set in the summer of 1920, amid the swirling rumors and accusations of gambling and game-fixing over the previous Fall's World Series between the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds. Sternweiss is the starting catcher for the mediocre St. Louis Browns. We are reminded that players of that era worked basically as indentured servants to team owners; that it was the owners who raked in the profits and "didn't share." And for Matti, even though he has proven he is a good field manager (he is guiding two of his pitchers toward 20-game winning seasons), he knows that he will not reap any monetary rewards for his efforts. ("Who but [the manager] really knew how important Matti was to the club's success?")

Hoffman's Sternweiss, while professing no superstitions or adherence to religious rituals, is haunted by images of a recent mailplane crash in New Jersey. He is obsessed with images of the crushed fuselage, and envelopes of mail fluttering about in the empty field where the plane crashed. This is a recurring image in Matti's mind and Hoffman skillfully reveals it for what it is: a symbol of lost faith.

It's his loss of faith in his religion, but also in himself, and his fellow man, that moves Matti to consider involving himself in a gambling fix. He wants to earn enough money to marry his sweetheart (who was the nurse over his father's bedside when he died). He knows that his desire to someday be a manager will likely not happen (likely because he is Jewish). But a huge payoff could lead him to a better life.

Matti, though, must weigh the risks with the rewards: The risk of banishment from baseball versus the reward of marriage to the woman he loves. But when his plan is uncovered, he is taken before the leader of the small immigrant Jewish community from which Matti lives on the outskirts. Because many of the gamblers associated with the growing Black Sox scandal are Jews, if a Jewish player is discovered to have fixed a game it could result in a great backlash against the religion, as a whole. Will Matti pursue the monetary rewards, or be pointed in the right direction by the leader of his synagogue? He faces this decision as a game against Detroit and its star player, Ty Cobb, approaches.

Matti's story is a morality tale of temptation and redemption. Money and fame compete with and against each other. Matti knows he is a good player - and his efforts are noticed by the fans and press. Yet he knows his career is limited because of factors outside of his control. Matti eventually must decide whether his life's path is one he can control or rely on the faith he's seemingly lost to take him where he is destined.

Reference material

I recently obtained a copy of The Baseball Novel (McFarland & Co.: 2008) by Noel Schraufnagel. This is an invaluable resource for anyone who is a fan of baseball fiction. Schraufnagel has included an enormous amount of bibliographic information, including lists, plot capsules, and his own personal reviews. Schraufnagel presents summaries for over 400 titles between 1838(!) and 2008. Even if you find that you don't agree with Schraufnagel's conclusions as to the relative merits of a particular novel, this bibliography is valuable just for the list of titles. I found myself going through the book to identify titles I hand't heard of and I came across at least a dozen that I've added to my future acquisition list.

The reviews contained in The Baseball Novel are helpful and insightful. You have to place some level of credibility with Schraufnagle, just because of the sheer number of books he's read. I compared a few of Shraufnagel's opinions with my own. I was pleasantly surprised that his opinion of Veteran's Park (Don J. Snyder, Ivy Books: 1988) matched well with my own opinion: that it is a greatly over-looked novel of literary merit within the genre. In glancing through his reviews, I liked his side notes as to titles that are must-reads versus those that should be relegated to the "worst" of the category.

Schraufnagel admits to limiting his annotations to adult novels because of the likely similarly large number of juvenile baseball titles (particularly published prior to the 1960s). But the dividing line between adult and juvenile fiction is gray. Just note Schraufnagel's inclusion of the John Tunis series. But I'll go along with this, only because of the time it would have taken to include them all.

This is the first reference piece I've acquired to accompany my collection of baseball fiction. I've put Andy McCue's Baseball by the Books (William C. Brown: 1991) and Lauricella's Home Games (McFarland & Co.: 1999), among a few others, as other references I want to obtain, if nothing else, than to balance out opinions and deepen my understanding of baseball fiction.

I appreciate bibliographic references like these that treat full-length novels, but that's only really a segment of baseball fiction. In addition to novels (both adult and juvenile), there are novellas and short stories. I'd love to see someone put together an all-inclusive bibliography of all types - novels and short stories - categorized by sub-genre (e.g., adult, juvenile, mystery, science fiction, etc.) Sort of a "baseball fiction in and out of print" type of reference. Wow, now that would be reference book!

Leading Off: Opening Lines, Part 2

"Time was, on a summer afternoon in the northern Vermont hamlet of Kingdom Commons, when Ethan Allen would walk completely around the rectangular village green and never be out of earshot of the Red Sox game on somebody's radio."

"Behind the grandstand the late afternoon sun moved around a big tree and poured its sticky heat into him."

"Old pal: Well Al I have not got much to tell you."

"A word of advice: Don't appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated when you're twenty-one."

"On the hot and humid night of July 21, 1958, when all signs pointed to a tenth consecutive pennant for the New York Yankees, a manhole cover rose slowly from its resting place near the center of a certain intersection in Washington, D.C."


(Waiting for Teddy Williams, Mosher; Man on Spikes, Asinof; You Know Me Al, Lardner; Season's End, Grimes; The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, Wallop)

Is this (a little patch of) Heaven?

Iowa has an allure over baseball novelists. W.P. Kinsella has made repeated visits to this state in various novels (see Shoeless Joe or The Iowa Baseball Confederacy) and short stories ("Frank Pierce, IA", "K Mart", and "The Dixon Corbelt League"). Jerry Klinkowitz also shares this affinity in stories contained in his collection, Short Season, and in his novel Basepaths. They both, of course, have ties to the state. Kinsella attended the Iowa Writer's Workshop, and Klinkowitz was on the faculty at the University of Northern Iowa. The University of Iowa's Program in Creative Writing has also included such baseball writers as Tom Grimes (Season's End), Philip Roth (The Great American Novel), and Don J. Snyder (Veteran's Park).

Robert Curtis joins the ranks of honorary Iowans with his The Baseball Patch (iUniverse: 2001). Along the lines of Kinsella, The Baseball Patch is a quirky, magic-laden tale about the pursuit of dreams and immortality. Curtis presents two protagonists: John Evanston, a Phoenix sportswriter, and Harley Walker, a retirement home friend of Evanston's grandfather.

As boys, Walker, his cousin, and their friend set out from their childhood home (the stereotypically-named, Cornville, Iowa) to seek fame and fortune as baseball players. Being 11 or 12 years old didn't seem to concern them. Their little league team had "magic" and hadn't lost a home game since Babe Ruth had attended one of their games five years previous while on his way to the West Coast for some barnstorming. They ride the rails west and end up trying out for a minor league team in Bisbee, Arizona along the Mexican border. After the try-out, they go their separate ways and end up with a variety of life-long experiences, never returning to Iowa.

Evanston is known to his peers as "The Freak" for his propensity for writing odd feature stories. When he learns that there's a little league team in the middle of Iowa that may not have lost a game in 60 years he decides this is the story of a lifetime (pun intended). He convinces his flirtatious editor to let him travel to Iowa to cover the NCAA wrestling championships from where he'll leave to investigate the baseball team. His editor mischievously routes his trip to Iowa through Fargo perhaps, as Evanston supposes, so that she can meet up with him later in Des Moines.

As Evanston heads off to track down the mysterious story behind Harley's reminiscences, Walker is visited by his former friend Zach Jared, who made the trip with him to Arizona. Jared convinces Walker that it's time to locate Harley's cousin and go home (to Iowa). The novel is then a story of planes, trains, and automobiles as it follows the journey of Harley and Evanston until they meet up in the small Iowa town where time seems to have stopped.

There's a lot to admire about this little tale. While it is fairly short (the book is only 160 or so pages long), it contains a lot of period tidbits about the 1920s and 30s. I liked the description of how Babe Ruth's caravan of town cars came into town, and the imagery of the dusty landscape in southern Arizona. It's a fantasy piece, for sure, although the mystery of why the Cornville Little League team hasn't lost any home games since 1923 is quickly surmised. But it's a fun little story and the interaction between young and old is entertaining. The ending is wrapped up quick and neat, and perhaps could have used a little tension or some degree of conflict before the ending. But The Baseball Patch is actually fine the way it is: like the rolling Iowa countryside where it is set.

Leading Off: Opening Lines

"You've probably never heard of me, but I'm in the Hall of Fame."

"Our family came to New York in the winter of '89, and in the spring I saw my first game of baseball."

"Always been in the right place at the wrong time."

"Sister Mary Bernadette! How many times have I asked you not to wear your cleats in the sanctuary?"

"Bottom half of the seventh, Brock's boy had made it through another inning unscratched, one! two! three!"

"My father saw him years later playing in a tenth-rate commercial league in a textile town in Carolina, wearing shoes and an assumed name."



(Murder in Fenway Part, Soos; The Celebrant, Greenberg; Veracruz Blues, Winegardner; The Spring Habit, Hanson; The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., Jerry Waugh, Prop., Coover; Shoeless Joe, Kinsella.)

Books on Deck

Last weekend I picked up two relatively new novels at the local Borders (it always helps to have a coupon!)

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (Picador, 2009)
Home, Away by Jeff Gillenkirk (Chin Music Press, 2010)

The former was recently reviewed by Ron Kaplan back in April, and the two main characters are tied together through baseball. The story, though, is primarily centered around caring for someone who is aging, but I liked the premise and, of course, the baseball aspect.

While perusing the aisles at Borders, I came across Home, Away and picked it up, as well. Gillenkirk's novel is a father-son story and how that relationship is tested over time.

These two acquisitions bring the books currently "on the bench" (i.e., not read, yet) to ten. For me, that's a good number to have available heading into the end of the season, as well as provide for a substantial reserve for next. I now have to decide whether to go ahead and read one more before the World Series, or hold out until next Opening Day. I do have my sights on a few other novels that I'd love to add to the current Bench, including The Man With Two Arms and The End of Baseball. Snagging one or two additional books this fall would make certainly make the decision to dip into the reserve easier.

Leon Carter, the greatest fastball pitcher in baseball fiction

William Brashler based this supporting character on Satchel Paige. Leon Carter is a 36-year old pitcher whose signature is his fastball. He's known for facing the leadoff hitter in a game with his fielders sit on the bench, or play cards behind the mound. He calls it his "invitation pitch". It was said that Satchel Paige was so confident in his pitching to have his fielders sit down while he faced a batter. And it's confidence that Carter possesses, as well. He is so consistent that he can throw his fastball over the plate multiple times without forcing the catcher to move his glove.

In The Bingo Long Travelling All-Stars and Motor Kings, Brashler's version of Paige has been pitching for the Louisville Ebony Aces for 13 years, and is touted as the "greatest fastball pitcher in the world." When asked by Bingo Long to be the featured player in his barnstorming team, we find that Carter is initially reluctant. He's content with his current situation. In fact, he's the highest paid player on the Aces, and has one of the larger houses in Louisville where he's settled in with his wife and kids. But every man has his price, and Long soon convinces Carter to join the team, for a guaranteed amount of money that's more than he's receiving from the Ace's owner.

Brashler doesn't dole out too much detail about Leon Carter's personal life. We learn he's a well-renowned veteran ballplayer, has been throwing a baseball for 25 years and has kids and a wife in Louisville. We can deduce that because he's one of the older players in the Negro Leagues, his motivation is more about getting as much money as possible out of his remaining playing days. But, I think, we can also determine that he's loyal to his friends. Otherwise, he could easily have negotiated a higher rate of pay from the Ace's owner once the rest of the team had left. Perhaps it was one more chance to be on the open road, on the barnstorming circuit; and a chance to mentor a few more young players, that really motivated Carter to join the All-Stars.

Being a long-time veteran of Negro League ball, barnstorming, and segregation-era society, his role is the father-figure on the team, and the voice of reason. Eventually, Bingo Long makes him the assistant promoter (his "Business Man") for the team. This role is, in fact, more like Long's conscience. When decisions are to be made, Long promises to go to Carter first for an opinion, but only if Leon keeps these thoughts between himself and Bingo. The riskier the decisions, the more Bingo leans on Carter. But he also uses Leon as a prop for making the un-popular choices, such as deciding to play as many small venues as possible, instead of relying only on larger payoffs in bigger stadiums (which would mean more rest for the team).

Bingo Long and Leon Carter are the classic "heart versus head". Bingo wants to go with his gut, most of the time, while Leon is more pragmatic. When players start to get hurt and can't play, Carter tells Long to send them home. "A traveling team's got to be light or it's not a travelling team no more." He advocates keeping the team "tired" in order to keep them motivated. Carter's character is necessary stable force in this story to counter the rashness that the other characters possess.

Character Studies

Henry Wiggen, Roy Hobbs, J. Henry Waugh, Jack Keefe, and Joe Boyd.^* I can’t think of any more recognizable figures in baseball fiction. They are the iconic characters of the genre, just as Hercule Perot and Sherlock Holmes are identified with mysteries, and Holden Caufield and Captain Ahab stand out in general literature. I've decided to add a regular feature to the blog: discussions of characters that appear in baseball fiction, from the better-known protagonists to the supporting figures. The goal will be to shed some new light on the familiar faces-- those who hold the prominent role in their respective stories. And also provide insight into those come off the bench (to keep with the theme, here), but are just as important to the development and progression of the plot. I look forward to putting these together, particularly because I'll need to go back to books I haven't read in years and re-acquaint myself with their stories and characters.


^* Henry Wiggen (Bang the Drum Slowly, et.al.), Roy Hobbs (The Natural), J. Henry Waugh (The Universal Baseball Association), Jack Keefe (You Know Me Al), and Joe Boyd (The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant).

The Shot Heard 'Round the World (but never seen, again)

Bobby Thomson passed away this week. A lifetime .270 hitter, Thomson played over half his career with the Giants. He hit over 260 home runs, but he is most remembered for the one he hit in the bottom of the ninth in the 1951 playoff series against the Dodgers. That home run climaxed an amazing comeback by the Giants, in which they made up a 13 1/2 game deficit during the last two months of the season.

While there have been numerous books written about that game, and countless re-tellings in others, I want to mention two: Pafko at the Wall, by Don DeLillo (Scribner:1997) and Miracle Ball: My Hunt for the Shot Heard 'Round the World, by Brian Biegael (Crown: 2009). While DeLillo's work is fiction and Biegal's is a semi-autobiographical tale, both center around what might have happened to the ball Thomson hit out of the Polo Grounds that day in October, 1951. That ball disappeared in the melee that occurred with the celebration and there has been disagreement as to what actually happened to the ball.

DeLillo's novella is taken from his larger Underworld. In the story, Cotter Martin is a black teenager from who sneaks into the game and ends up wrenching the ball away from the hands of a playing-hooky aquaintance, Bill Waterson - a white middle-aged businessman. Chased through the streets, Cotter is offered various amounts of money for the ball, but he wants to keep it, as a remembrance of the day. In the end, Martin escapes into the alleyways of Harlem, while his pursuer is forced to retreat back to familiar territory.

Brian Biegael's father always claimed that he was the one ended up with the home run ball, and would regale his family and friends as to how he came to obtain it. Grown up, and now a reporter, Biegael decided to determine whether the baseball his father had was the one Bobby Thomson hit and, if not, then the true story of its disappearance. His book reads like a detective story, in which he searches through documents, interviews people and players, and in the end arrives at an almost unimaginable ending. I won't spoil the ending, because the book is a well written page-turner but, like me, I'm sure you will wonder if Biegael's findings define the end of the story.

The Bobby Thomson home run is one of the great stories of baseball, along with Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hit streak, Bill Buckner's error, and Willie Mays' over-the-shoulder catch. I'm sure most players dream of hitting a game-winning home run or pitching a perfect game, while others dream of just getting the chance to play in the Majors. Bobby Thomson certainly accomplished the dream of many. As for the ball he hit - who knows? Perhaps it's on a shelf somewhere, buried under odds and ends in a box, or rotting away in a landfill. In the end, whatever its fate, the mystery just makes for a good story.

Baseball and Stephen King

I remember years ago reading The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and finding it interesting that Stephen King - one of America's premier horror writers - was also a devoted Red Sox fan. And while Tom Gordon is not, strictly, a novel about baseball, the Game does feature prominently in the story. And, while the level of terror in The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon was not up to King's typical work, the novel will keep you reading until the end just wondering at each page turn whether something is lurking around the next tree or hill. And hoping something isn't.

It's been over 10 years since King penned The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and since then the Sox finally won the World Series and have contended for several others. That may have provided an impetus for another baseball-oriented story from King, but I don't know.

Unlike Tom Gordon, Blockade Billy (Simon & Schuster: 2010) is a novella about baseball, and specifically a catcher. Told from the point of view of a teammate, the story is about how Billy Blakely became starting catcher for the New Jersey Titans and eventually was erased from baseball records and memory.

I enjoyed the story from a baseball point of view - the descriptions of the game play, the atmosphere and surroundings, etc., were all done very well and aptly provided by the narrator, Granny Grantham. But, this being a Stephen King story, I was expecting more, some level of terror or horror that would darken the tale and provide at least an ending worthy of the book's publicity description ("Blockade Billy had a secret darker than any pill or injection that might cause a scandal in sports today. His secret was much, much worse...") I started reading the story thinking of stories such as "Naked to the Invisible Eye" (George Effinger, 1973) or even some type of monster tale, such as Brittle Innings, by Michael Bishop. But, instead, King crafted just a baseball story with a bit of a twist that most people could have deduced before the end of the book. Was Billy Blakely's secret so dark and terrible that major league baseball would erase all mention of him from the record books? I'm not convinced. And I think that the ending was put to rest a little too neatly and quickly.

Overall: Blockade Billy is a nice little baseball yarn. But know going in that you won't reach a level of unexpected, or terror, that you'd expect from Stephen King. If you want a little fear mixed in with some baseball, read The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.

Review: Babe Ruth Caught in a Snowstorm (Houghton Mifflin: 1973)

Period novels have their own "feel" and "texture". There's almost a naive quality to them. John Alexander Graham wrote this story in the early 1970s, during the height of opposition against the Viet Nam War, the Watergate break-in, Munich, and the beginning of the end of the Reserve Clause in baseball. I look at this period in U.S. history as the end of America's innocence. Reality had arrived in the guise of economic downturn, military failure, and political corruption. In many ways Snowstorm is similar to other novels of the period (like Love Story, in its sentimentality and innocence and Watership Down, in its attempt at social commentary).

Graham's Snowstorm characterizes the end of naiveté. In the story, a successful businessman, Slezak, forms a baseball team for the pure love of the game. Slezak totes around a souvenir paperweight – a snow globe with the figure of the Bambino taking a home run swing – as a reminder of how pure and wonderful the game is to him. It’s no matter that he knows little of the rules or what is required to field a team; his aim is the original “build it and they will come” model. His Wichita Wraith will not be based in Wichita, but in a Boston suburb. The fans will not care what they are called, or where they play – they will simply come to watch, like him, because they love the game.

His players, epitomized by the team's catcher Petashne, are also not professionals. Very few of them, in fact, have any experience and their only qualification is their love of the game and belief they can play. Their innocence is characterized by their individuality; when sent to purchase their uniforms each picks out an outfit that may or may not be an actual baseball uniform, but include garish features (such as buttons, or holes, or multiple colors) that each player admires. But when they get on the field, there is magic. Their passion for baseball elevates their skill level, and they start to win.

The story is a metaphor for the changes affecting America during the 60s and 70s. The team is so successful that it makes the jump to the Major Leagues. But like America’s confidence in itself (such as a supreme belief in right versus wrong in Southeast Asia), it is only a matter of time before the team is overcome by the weight of its own success. The increased media attention, bureaucracy, and capitalism take their toll on the players and the game they love. In a meaningful moment toward the end, we see Petashne pick up the snow globe and observe that with all the snow circling about, it’s hard to see the figure of Babe Ruth. (“What in the world is he doing playing ball in the middle of a blizzard?”)And like the demonstrations against an unpopular war, tension finally erupts in a melee between fans, the players, and management.

I enjoyed Babe Ruth Caught in a Snowstorm, particularly when I got past the over-simplistic mindsets of the various characters and was able to read the story as the metaphor it is. This is not a piece of realism, nor a work of fantasy; Snowstorm is a work of social commentary and a tale of lost innocence. With a good bit of baseball thrown in.

No Runs, No Hits

Last night Tampa Bay pitcher Matt Garza tossed the fifth no-hitter of the 2010 season (and the first for the Rays' franchise). I took a quick look through my library collection and found the following books that include a perfect game or no-hitter.

For the Love of the Game, Michael Shaara (perfect game)
Screwball, David Ferrell (perfect game)
The Spring Habit, David Hanson (no hitter)

My opinion is that there are just not that many novels featuring, or including, a no-hitter or perfect game. I think, simply, because writing about position players allows for more action and perhaps more drama. If we looked, we're likely to find a multitude of stories that end with the classic bottom-of-the-ninth home run, or late inning comeback. It seems to me that the perfect game and, similarly, the no-hitter are correspondingly as rare in literature as they are in real life.

All Stars and Hall of Famers

This being Hall-of-Fame weekend, I thought it appropriate to take a look at Kevin King's All the Stars Came out That Night (Plume: 2006). King's historical novel takes us down a Depression-era road filled with famous personalities who come together for an All-Star game in Fenway Park following the World Series. What makes this game of All-Stars different is that it pits white major-leaguers against their Negro League counterparts. King paints a vivid picture of the period, featuring gambling, prohibition, famous movie stars, and even a Central American dictator. At times, though, you do feel that King is name-dropping (especially when the scene switches to lavish Hollywood parties), but since this is a debut novel a degree of leeway can be granted. Even so, this is an entertaining, quick-paced, and overall fun read. If there is anything non-forgivable, it's suggestion by several characters of various players and their Hall of Fame chances. The novel is set in 1934 and it wasn't until 1939 that the newly formed Hall of Fame started inducting players.

Being someone interested in history (as well as baseball), what I found particularly interesting was the descriptions of the various non-baseball characters such as Henry Ford and George Raft. King presents Ford as the racist businessman who becomes persuaded to bankroll the game. Raft is the movie icon who has “discovered” a rising star in the Pacific Coast League named Joe DiMaggio and eventually enables his participation in the game. Added to these characters are, of course, the baseball players: Satchel Paige, Babe Ruth, Josh Gibson, Dizzy Dean, and Joe DiMaggio, along with a host of others. Each add their spin to the events.

While some reviewers have commented on the length of this book (over 400 pages), I found the ancillary accounts interesting and worth including. My thought is if you’re going to write a period piece, then include descriptions of the period. I find the historical novels I like best are those that are developed like a painting: with details woven into both the fore- and background of the subject. In this way, the result is a richer and more colorful presentation. A level of context is created, and maintained. The only downside is that by the time King gets around to it, he seems to quicken the pace and the ending comes across a bit condensed.

Now, in the end, would it have been possible that such a game could have been played? Probably not. While the Major Leagues did a wink and a nod toward its players barnstorming against, and with, African American players during the off-season, actually allowing a game between the League’s best and that of the Negro Leagues would have exposed the all-white league to what it was and what it was missing. Baseball of the first half of the twentieth century was a product of its time. And while there’s current sentiment that the Game should have been integrated, the country just wasn’t ready. But that’s what makes the premise so interesting, and creates the basis for a good yarn.

***********

This weekend saw the induction of Whitey Herzog and Andre Dawson (as well as umpire Doug Harvey) into the Hall of Fame. Congratulations to each of these men. They are certainly worthy additions to the Hall.

Welcome to The Books of Summer

I'd always imagined that the first post would be on Opening Day, but like many things we want to do that plan got pushed back (and back, and back...) Anyway, this time of summer - the period around the All-Star Game and the annual Hall of Fame inductions at Cooperstown - is just as appropriate, I suppose. This is a project I've been considering for quite a while. Baseball fiction has a long history as a genre, with many of its titles featured prominently as works of literature (Malamud's The Natural and The Celebrant, by Eric Greenberg, are two that quickly come to mind).

A little background about me is needed, I think. I was not a literature major - but do hold a Masters in Library Science, if that means anything. But I am a big fan of the game and its history. I do a fair amount of reading during the course of the year, primarily fiction with some history and biographical pieces added along the way. I've been reading (and accumulating a good-sized library of) baseball fiction for the past twenty-five years, or so.

To date, I've read a little over ninety titles in this genre. I typically read five or six baseball novels between April and October each year which, not coincidentally, corresponds with the baseball season. The first story I recall reading was Donald Honig's The Last Great Season (1979). I remember checking this out from the local library; it's a big book (over 400 pages) and is the story of the New York Lions, a quintessential losing team reminiscent of the early Boston Braves, St. Louis Browns, or today's Pirates or Orioles. The novel focuses on the Lions as they head toward the 1942 season (the "last season" before most of baseball's stars would have switched from flannels to khaki). In time, I'm sure I'll provide more detailed thoughts on baseball fiction, including my reviews of the books I've read or am reading, the authors who wrote them, and what others have had to say about them. But I'm sure there'll be other items of interest interspersed here and there as I go along. I hope you enjoy.