Always Stand In Against The Curve: And Other Sports Stories

by Willie Morris

Willie Morris's collection of sports stories, Always Stand In Against The Curve , is a book for those of us lucky enough to have shot baskets under a driveway or shagged fly balls in open fields until it was too dark to see the hoop or the ball against the sky. In Morris's soulful point of view, sports is about growing up in America, radio broadcasts of the Brooklyn Dodgers in a Mississippi country store, girls with double names, practical jokes, small town coaches, the hold the past has on us, about running effortlessly in the sun. The novella, "The Fumble," is a sports classic about high school football in the Deep South. Set in the 1950s it describes a confrontation of mythic proportions between a small town football team from the "Delta" and the omnipotent Central High Tigers of Jackson, Mississippi. Each of the six autobiographical essays in this book form chapters of a Great American boyhood, beginning with Morris's farewells to high school and to American legion baseball, a road trip to Notre Dame with "Bevo," the University of Texas longhorn steer mascot, Rhodes scholars playing basketball in England, a writers-and-artists softball game in East Hampton, New York, in which the author admits he is too old to run the bases, and finally a journey back to Austin, Texas, in search of the past. To Willie Morris, sports are a gentle center in the eye of the storm, a clean world of instinct and action where one can work out the bruises of living, where the rituals of youth teach valuable lessons about winning and losing, about heroes and disillusionment, about finding a way to face the world.

152 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1983

About the author

William Weaks "Willie" Morris (November 29, 1934 — August 2, 1999), was an American writer and editor born in Jackson, Mississippi, though his family later moved to Yazoo City, Mississippi, which he immortalized in his works of prose. Morris' trademark was his lyrical prose style and reflections on the American South, particularly the Mississippi Delta. In 1967 he became the youngest editor of Harper's Magazine. He wrote several works of fiction and non-fiction, including his seminal book North Toward Home, as well as My Dog Skip.

Reviews

[Catherine Mincy]

I thought I'd read every Willie Morris book out there, but I ran across this gem in Square Books last week. A collection of essays related to sports in one way or another, it tickled my funny bone, made me want to go outside and swing a bat, but also made me appreciate the role sports have played in our collective history.

I highly recommend to anyone who can appreciate "Bevo goes to South Bend" without any further description, anyone who has experienced the defeat of a last second fumble, and anyone who has tossed a softball way beyond the years when they really should. But also anyone who can appreciate the exquisite prose with which Morris described these fantastic and mundane acts of athleticism.

Morris was truly a Mississippi boy and Mississippi is the worse for his early death.

[John Yelverton]

This is a collection of biographical short stories from Willie Morris' life, done in a very literary way. The stories range anywhere from cute to boring, so it's really in the eye of the beholder whether or not you will enjoy this book.

[Ryleigh Overby]

4 stars only because I like his growing up in MS stories better than his stories from when he left! But I love his writing and I love his reminiscence.