Baseball/Literature/Culture
Essays, 2008–2009
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About the Book
The Conference on Baseball in Literature and American Culture has consistently produced a strong body of scholarship since its inception in 1995. Essays presented at the 2008 and 2009 conferences are published in the present work. Topics covered include religion; class and racial dichotomies in the literature of cricket and baseball; re-reading The Natural in the 21st century; the feminist movement; Don DeLillo’s Game 6; baseball in Seinfeld; Robert B. Parker; Harry Stein’s Hoopla; Negro league owner Tom Wilson’s impact on Nashville; Major League Baseball’s postwar boom; and overwrought baseball editorials, among others.
About the Author(s)
Praise for the Book
“worth the expense for any serious student of baseball”—Bookgasm.
Bibliographic Details
Edited by Ronald E. Kates and Warren Tormey
Foreword by John N. McDaniel
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 243
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2010
pISBN: 978-0-7864-3681-1
eISBN: 978-0-7864-5673-4
Imprint: McFarland
Series: Baseball in Literature and American Culture Conference Series
Table of Contents
Foreword by John N. McDaniel 1
Preface: Working the Count: Continuing Diversity in Baseball Studies
RONALD E. KATES AND WARREN TORMEY 3
I. BASEBALL IN SCHOLARLY AND SPIRITUAL CONTEXTS
Baseball Studies: Where Have We Been? Where Are We Going?
PETER CARINO 9
Proselytizing Pastime: Appropriating Jesus at Coors Field
ANDREW HAZUCHA 21
“Blasphemous Youths” and Sunday Baseball: A Cincinnati Tale from 1885
KEVIN GRACE 29
II. BASEBALL IN CULTURAL AND LITERARY CONTEXTS
What’s “Not Cricket” Ain’t Necessarily Baseball Either: Class and Racial Dichotomies in the Literature of Cricket and Baseball
JEREMY LARANCE 38
“Minds of Fleetful Thoughts”: Rube Foster, Dave Malarcher, and the Intellectual Project of Negro League Baseball
DANIEL ANDERSON 50
Staging a Feminist Movement in Baseball: Rida Johnson Young’s The Girl and the Pennant
TRAVIS STERN 64
Baseball at the D.C. Diamond: October 3, 1951—The Day the Earth Stood Still
STEVE ANDREWS 72
Re-Reading The Natural in the 21st Century
REBEKAH BILLINGS 89
“An Offense Against Memory”: The Buckner Moment in Don DeLillo’s Game 6
CROSBY HUNT 96
“What the Hell Did You Trade Jay Buhner For?”
Baseball in Seinfeld
AARON W. MILLER 102
Hard-Boiled Baseball: The National Game in the Fiction of Robert B. Parker
GARY LAND 109
Change of a Nation: Boxing, Baseball, and the Birth of a New American Hero as Depicted in Harry Stein’s Hoopla
NICHOLAS X. BUSH 120
Putting the Ball Cap on James Joyce: Beer and Bars, and Echoes of Ulysses in Coover’s Universal Baseball Association
WARREN TORMEY 125
The Inevitable Last Pitch: Lit Fans Bid Rabbit Adieu
PHIL OLIVER 141
III. FICTION
Politics as Usual
TOM WELLS 151
A Wicked Curve
STEVEN L. WALKER 164
IV. BASEBALL IN HISTORICAL AND REFLECTIVE CONTEXTS
The Day the Part-Timers Were Champions: June 13, 1926,
Muzzy Field, Bristol, Connecticut
DOUGLAS S. MALAN 181
The Contributions of Tom Wilson: A Negro League Team Owner’s Impact on the Nashville Community
HARRIET HAMILTON 187
Pumpsie Green: The Last of the Firsts
THOMAS D. VEVE 192
When Every Mudville Joined a League: Minor League Baseball’s Postwar Boom, 1945–1955
ROBERT G. BARRIER 197
How to Write a Great Baseball Story
R DEAN JOHNSON 202
Nothing’s Wrong with Baseball: Overwrought Baseball Editorials and the Most Frequent Complaints
About the Game
SARAH D. BUNTING 209
What Baseball Makes
CARL SCHINASI 216
About the Contributors 223
Index 227