Baseball: A Literary Anthology

by Nicholas Dawidoff (Editor)

Robert Frost never felt more at home in America than when watching baseball "be it in park or sand lot." Full of heroism and heartbreak, the most beloved of American sports is also the most poetic. Its rhythms are those of the seasons. Its memories are savored, it losses lamented. Baseball's graceful athleticism, formal strategy, and democratic spirit have ensured the devotion of Americans for generations, and writers have been drawn to this sport as to no other.

With Baseball: A Literary Anthology, The Library of America presents a vivid panorama of the game that is, in Roger Angell's words, "one of the reasons that summer exists." It offers a lively mix of stories, memoirs, poems, news reports, and insider accounts about all aspects of the great American game, from its pastoral 19th-century beginnings to its apotheosis as the undisputed national pastime.

Here are the major leaguers and the bush leaguers, the umpires and broadcasters, the wives and girlfriends and would-be girlfriends, fans meticulously observant and lovingly, fanatically obsessed. Here too are the teams of storied greatness--the Yankees, the Dodgers, the Red Sox--and the luminaries who made them legendary.

Unforgettable portraits of icons such as Christy Matthewson, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, and Jackie Robinson are joined by glimpses of lesser-known characters such as the erudite Moe Berg, who could speak a dozen languages "but couldn't hit in any of them."

Poems included in Baseball: A Literary Anthology include indispensable works whose phrases have entered the language--Ernest Thayer's "Casey at the Bat" and Franklin P. Adams's "Baseball's Sad Lexicon"--as well as more recent offerings from May Swenson, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Martin Espada. Testimonies from classic oral histories offer insights into the players who helped enshrine the sport in the American imagination. Spot reporting by Heywood Broun and Damon Runyon stands side by side with journalistic profiles that match baseball legends with some of our finest writers: John Updike on Ted Williams, Gay Talese on Joe DiMaggio, Red Smith on Lefty Grove.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction, Essays, Poetry, History, Anthologies

733 pages, Hardcover

First published March 4, 2002

About the author

Nicholas Dawidoff is the best-selling author of five books, including The Catcher Was a Spy and In the Country of Country. A Pulitzer Prize finalist, he has been a Guggenheim, Berlin Prize, and Art for Justice Fellow. He lives in Connecticut.

Reviews

[Ian Mullet · Rating 5 out of 5]

were it not for this book i'd have a phd, but who can solve differential equations when gay talese's nonfiction narrative of joe dimaggio is sitting there unread?

[Robert Lukins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essays, news stories, fiction and clippings on 150 years of baseball and its sun-bleached world. Worth it alone for the pieces by Roger Angell, DeLillo's near-perfect 'Kafko at the Wall' and the many, many bits on (my beloved) Red Sox. There's a universe where I'm just reading this anthology on an endless loop and I'm entirely fine and happy.

One day I'll write my baseball book. One day.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fine anthology of baseball writing that stretches across the entire history of baseball, from the end of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century. The first 100-200 pages are a little uneven as some, like the classic "Casey at the Bat," are superb while others are down right horrible, and some are a little ho-hum. But once you get past those, the quality of each piece begins to level off and even improve to elysian heights. By the time you reach the end, exhausted by its 715 pages of poems, essays, and miscellaneous yarns, you're excited about game itself and, once again, completely in love with baseball and all of its idiosyncrasies. The last 100-200 pages have some of the best works from an overall perspective because, by this time, the writers are getting closer to the present and each story gets a little more nostalgic, remembering baseball back in the day when the writer was young and innocent. Whenever a writer taps into that spirit in this story, be ready for a good one. In short, this is a great book for the more right-brained baseball fan to read whether it's the off-season or the in-season.

[Michael Lindgren · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Library of America and editor Robert Dawidoff have done an excellent job in collecting the reportage, fiction, memoir, and poetry that make up Baseball: A Literary Anthology. Spanning the murky and convoluted origins of the game to the present hyper-commercial supershow, the book essentially is a 700-page love letter on the mystery and beauty of the game. Much of the writing, not surprisingly, captures baseball's urban, postwar apogee as epitomized by the fierce internecine baseball wars carried out in New York between the Giants, Dodgers, and Yankees. To me this writing carries a romantic nostalgia for a harder, tougher, yet somehow more elegant America, full of smoke and alcohol and fedoras and profane, hard-bitten sportswriters. Nowhere is this more keenly evoked than in the book's penultimate piece, Don DeLillo's justly famous "Kafko at the Wall," a dazzling and panoramic account of the famous 1951 playoff between the Dodgers and the Giants at the Polo Grounds. A minor but telling cavil: I find it incomprehensible that nothing from Eliot Asinof's superb Eight Men Out -- the definitive account of the "thrown" 1919 World Series -- was included herein.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely buffet of baseball literature - of which I am a Fan (not as certain about actual baseball yet). I have enjoyed learning the verse that everyone skips when they sing Take Me Out to the Ball Game, reading about Ty Cobb's fighting and Hal Chase's first base glory, about the other national game called killing-the-umpire and other baseball literary adventures. Its nice because each section is short and I can skip around depending on my mood.

[Philip Knoerzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, they got just about everyone you'd ever want to read in here, except for Tom Boswell--my sister's favorite baseball writer. The pieces by Roger Angell and Stephen King are superb. There seems to be a slight bias towards the Boston Red Sox in this book, but I think it's only because very smart writers live in and around Boston.

[Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful collection of baseball writing covering a wide range of time, and including many of the great names and pieces. No matter how much you have read or know about baseball, you are bound to find something new in this book. I particularly liked some of the things from the early days of major league baseball. Highly recommended for all baseball fans.

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing anthology of baseball writing, stretching back to the 19th century -- some great oral histories of old-time players, New Yorker profiles, etc.. I maybe should've waited til the long, cold months of the off-season. But I didn't.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good collection of baseball writings. Some are excellent (Updike’s story of the end of Ted William’s career in particular) and some are pretty weak. More good than bad although far too much about the Red Sox.

[Chelsea · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that introduced me to Roger Angell, for which I will be forever grateful. Literature of Baseball is still one of my favorite pointless liberal arts education classes.

[Dietrich]

Okay to say I've "read" this is a little misleading. It's an anthology, so I pick it up from time to time.
(Thanks, Raph!)

[Ron Kaplan · Rating 4 out of 5]

anthology,essays

[B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of it is very good and some of it is meh.

It feels like movie trailers, though. You want to see more of some but you know you have the best part.

[E.R. Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed meandering my way through this series of articles, essays, poems and short stories about my most beloved sport, Baseball. From the old timey prose of Damon Runyon and Ring Lardner to the gritty storytelling of Don Delillo, to the elegance of John Updike, the scholarly brilliance of Carl Sandburg and the beautiful melodic verses of Robert Frost. There is something for everyone in this collection, just as there is something for every American to be found in our greatest sport. It was a great change of pace from whatever novel,biography, historical or scientific book I was reading these past seven months. When they became stale I could pick this volume up and be carried away to the ballpark, the crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd, and all the dramatic moments of the history of our game. Highly recommended.

[Herman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The long and short of this book is that this is just plain, good writing. All the essays and short stories focused on the great American pastime. And it is great writing.
From the poem, Casey at the Bat, to the origin of the song "Take Me Out to the Ballgame", to the Rocky Road of Pistol Pete (what a funny story), to Bill Veech's story behind the story of the midget that went to bat, to the Stephen King account of his son's journey in the Little League championship series journey, to Keith Hernandez's blow by blow account of a single pitcher and batter episode....all of it very fine writing by renowned authors, essayists, celebrity memories, baseball players.
A very excellent read. I loved it.

[Chris Maddix · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a real treasure to a lover of baseball. The editor has pieced together an amalgamation of stories (and poetry) on every aspect of the game, from Ball Four Jim Bouton examining the crudity to a couple of gents recalling the wonder of baseball cards. You might skim a few of the stories, but if you have any interest in baseball, you will dogear a number of your favorites. This will be a book to revisit for years.

[Brian S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just the essays on Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio alone would make this book worthwhile. There are many more gems in here however, like a piece on the 1975 World Series, one about Casey Stengel, a piece by a minor leaguer who never made it, to name just a few. It's a great collection.