Baseball/Literature/Culture

Ronald E. Kates is an associate professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University. Warren Tormey is an assistant professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University. They are co-chairs (along with Crosby Hunt) of the Conference on Baseball in Literature and American Culture.

• Table of ContentsForeword by John N. McDaniel      Preface: Working the Count: Continuing Diversity in Baseball StudiesRONALD E. KATES AND WARREN TORMEY      I. BASEBALL IN SCHOLARLY AND SPIRITUAL CONTEXTSBaseball Studies: Where Have We Been? Where Are We Going?PETER CARINO      Proselytizing Pastime: Appropriating Jesus at Coors FieldANDREW HAZUCHA      “Blasphemous Youths” and Sunday Baseball: A Cincinnati Tale from 1885KEVIN GRACE      II. BASEBALL IN CULTURAL AND LITERARY CONTEXTSWhat’s “Not Cricket” Ain’t Necessarily Baseball Either: Class and Racial Dichotomies in the Literature of Cricket and BaseballJEREMY LARANCE      “Minds of Fleetful Thoughts”: Rube Foster, Dave Malarcher, and the Intellectual Project of Negro League BaseballDANIEL ANDERSON      Staging a Feminist Movement in Baseball: Rida Johnson Young’s The Girl and the PennantTRAVIS STERN      Baseball at the D.C. Diamond: October 3, 1951—The Day the Earth Stood StillSTEVE ANDREWS      Re-Reading The Natural in the 21st CenturyREBEKAH BILLINGS      “An Offense Against Memory”: The Buckner Moment in Don DeLillo’s Game 6CROSBY HUNT      “What the Hell Did You Trade Jay Buhner For?”Baseball in SeinfeldAARON W. MILLER      Hard-Boiled Baseball: The National Game in the Fiction of Robert B. ParkerGARY LAND      Change of a Nation: Boxing, Baseball, and the Birth of a New American Hero as Depicted in Harry Stein’s HooplaNICHOLAS X. BUSH      Putting the Ball Cap on James Joyce: Beer and Bars, and Echoes of Ulysses in Coover’s Universal Baseball AssociationWARREN TORMEY      The Inevitable Last Pitch: Lit Fans Bid Rabbit AdieuPHIL OLIVER      III. FICTIONPolitics as UsualTOM WELLS      A Wicked CurveSTEVEN L. WALKER      IV. BASEBALL IN HISTORICAL AND REFLECTIVE CONTEXTSThe Day the Part-Timers Were Champions: June 13, 1926,Muzzy Field, Bristol, ConnecticutDOUGLAS S. MALAN      The Contributions of Tom Wilson: A Negro League Team Owner’s Impact on the Nashville CommunityHARRIET HAMILTON      Pumpsie Green: The Last of the FirstsTHOMAS D. VEVE      When Every Mudville Joined a League: Minor League Baseball’s Postwar Boom, 1945–1955ROBERT G. BARRIER      How to Write a Great Baseball StoryR DEAN JOHNSON      Nothing’s Wrong with Baseball: Overwrought Baseball Editorials and the Most Frequent ComplaintsAbout the GameSARAH D. BUNTING      What Baseball MakesCARL SCHINASI      About the Contributors      Index

“worth the expense for any serious student of baseball”—Bookgasm.