Extra Innings

Richard Peterson is a professor emeritus of English at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He is the author of Growing Up With Clemente and coauthor of The Slide: Leyland, Bonds, and the Star-Crossed Pittsburgh Pirates.

"Peterson attempts to get at central questions about baseball by exploring the depiction of our national pastime in literature. In discussing books from Bernard Malamud's famous The Natural to Mark Harris's more-obscure The Southpaw, Peterson brings alive dramas and themes that have echoed for generations."--Elizabeth Taylor, Chicago Tribune "[Peterson] adds a dimension to the discussion of serious baseball writing that has been lacking until now."--David Shiner, Elysian Fields "Richard Peterson's essays repeatedly give readers delightful shocks of recognition about a game they will know better when they digest this book."--George F. Will "Richard Peterson knows baseball-and he also knows how it has been written down. His unique command of both ends of this process lets him show what is so valuable about the game and why writers have gone astray in pursuit of it."--Jerome Klinkowitz, author of Owning a Piece of the Minors