For most of the past year, or so, I have been putting together a baseball fiction database. I started out simply wanting to have a mechanism to catalog my collection - a listing of titles with authors, when the book was published and whether it was hardcover or soft, and maybe a brief summary of the plot.Well, over time I've expanded the database to include not only a plot summary, but subject terms. And, I've added related datasets for fictional team names and character names. The biggest part of the project is the characters, of course. Originally, I'd thought only to include the protagonist and the principle supporting characters. But, as things go, I ended up deciding to include every character - no matter how small. So the list now includes names of people who may have only been named once, or in passing. And, I've also decided to add actual people (like Mel Ott or Christy Mathewson) since many novels incorporate actual events, or teams, or people in supporting roles. And some, like Veracruz Blues, for expample, are almost entirely populated by actual people. The addition of historical characters meant I had to add a field to denote the real folks. And, it has meant an added layer of research - to identify those people if they occur. An interesting note - some people, like Babe Ruth, appear in multiple stories, so they will end up being recorded several times in the database.
I've got a lot of work to do. Creating the main catalog of books was simple, but I now spend time each week going back one book at a time to identify the characters and the role they play in the story. This is rather time consuming since it involves, basically, re-reading the story so as not to miss anything. I try to go back over one book each week. And, if I'm reading something new, I carry around a notepad or piece of paper to write names (and teams) down as I go along. So, perhaps in a year, or so, I'll have updated the database so that it will be a comprehensive database of baseball fiction - or at least of those titles I've read.
Keep you posted.
