Short Story Anthologies, Baseball - Essays & Writings, Sports - Fiction, Sports & Adventure - Literary Anthologies
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Overview
This anthology brings together twenty-eight exceptional short stories about the great game of baseball. Written over several decades by some of America's favorite writers, including Zane Grey, James Thurber, Robert Penn Warren, T. Coraghessan Boyle, and Chet Williamson, many of the stories are about the game itself; other use baseball as a backdrop for timeless themes, such as morality, greed, and love. All of them pay tribute to a game that has emerged with our national identity. The stories on these pages conjure that mixed aroma of dirt and peanuts and seem to produce that promising sound of a bat making contract with a ball. They renew faith that even with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, a come-from-behind victory is still possible, and they show us baseball at its most entertaining, from "My Roomy," written by Ring Lardner in 1914, to Damon Runyon's "Baseball Hattie," written in the baseball-mad fifties, to Garrison Keillor's 1988 story, "Three New Twins Join Club in Spring." Good yarns slide in between nostalgic reveries on the lore of the game and thoughtful reactions on American culture.In this collection of 25 baseball stories, good yarns slide in between nostalgic reveries on the lore of the game and thoughtful reflections on American culture. Among the contributors are T. Coraghessan Boyle, Michael Chabon, Zane Grey, Garrison Keillor, James Thurber, P.G. Wodehouse, and Ring Lardner.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
With the current malaise surrounding the sport, the time is ripe for this excellent collection chronicling more than a century of America's love affair with baseball. With an all-star cast of writers drawn from various eras and genres, Staudohar (Labor Relations in Professional Sports) demonstrates how thoroughly the game permeates American life-its psychology, sense of drama, mythology and moral code provide archetypes familiar even to those who have never set foot in a ballpark. The tales dramatize the conflicts between youth and experience, pride and humility, skill and luck, team loyalty and personal ambition. Master storytellers like Ring Lardner (author of three entries here), Zane Grey, Damon Runyon, P.G. Wodehouse, Robert Penn Warren, James Thurber, Garrison Keillor and T. Coraghessan Boyle celebrate the national pastime in 27 memorable tales and one poem, some poignant, some uproarious, each introduced by a brief editor's note. Baseball and literary fans may debate whether these are indeed the ``best'' baseball stories (where's George Plimpton's ``The Curious Case of Sydd Finch''?). So many good writers have felt the need to write about baseball that compiling a good anthology of baseball fiction isn't the hardest of tasks. Still, even if this project is a bit of a hanging curveball, Staudohar has hit it out of the park. (Dec.)Library Journal
Any collection of baseball stories that fails to include examples from W.P. Kinsella's work is leaving out some of the finest short stories ever written; at the very least, "K-Mart" and "The Thrill of the Grass" should have been included here. So should one or two of the short stories in Jerry Klinkowitz's Short Season and Other Stories (Johns Hopkins, 1988). This said, editor Staudohar (coauthor of Labor Relations in Professional Sports, Greenwood, 1986) includes some of the classics from Ring Lardner (The Annotated Baseball Stories of Ring Lardner, LJ 4/1/95), James Thurber, and Damon Runyon, as well as a few unexpected treats from P.G. Wodehouse and Garrison Keillor. But there's a lot of dreck here, too, stories that were born in men's magazines and should have been allowed to rest in peace there. Only comprehensive collections need consider.-Marylaine Block, St. Ambrose Univ. Lib., Davenport, Ia.Wes Lukowsky
This outstanding anthology is a testament to baseball's enduring drawing power as subject matter for some of our most renowned authors. Among those represented are Zane Grey, Robert Penn Warren, Ring Lardner, James Thurber, and Garrison Keillor. Highlights include Warren's "Goodwood Comes Back," in which a man recalls the fate of his town's best-ever ballplayer; Eliot Asinof's "The Rookie," a poignant tale of an aging rookie's belated shot at the major leagues; and "A Pitcher Grows Tired" by Ashley Buck, which relates the thoughts of a still-successful but aging pitcher. There's also Thayer's famous "Casey at the Bat" and Frank DeFord's sequel, in which mighty Casey crosses paths with John L. Sullivan and James Naismith. Plus, it's hard not to treasure a book that exposes readers to such old favorites as Thurber's "You Could Look It Up" and Lardner's "My Roomy." A worthy addition to most sports-literature collections.Book Details
Published
November 1, 1995
Publisher
Chicago Review Pr
Pages
404
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9781556522475