Dreaming Baseball

Writing Sports

by James T. Farrell

Much like author James T. Farrell, Mickey Donovan―the main character in Dreaming Baseball― grew up on the South Side of Chicago dreaming of becoming a star for the White Sox. Donovan’s childhood dream came true in 1919 when he made the team. Despite the fact that he spent most of his rookie season on the bench, it was truly a magical year―until the Black Sox scandal turned it into a nightmare. James T. Farrell dreamed of one day playing second base for his hometown Chicago White Sox, but, failing that, he became one of America’s great novelists. Farrell loved the game of baseball with the same passion he brought to the celebrated Studs Lonigan trilogy. In the 1950s Farrell signed an agreement with A. S. Barnes to write two baseball books. The first book published from this deal was My Baseball Diary, in 1957, still considered one of the very best fan books on baseball. The second baseball book was to be a novel about the infamous 1919 Black Sox scandal. Though several draft s of the novel were written, it remained unpublished―until now. Editors Ron Briley, Margaret Davidson, and James Barbour worked with the various manuscript drafts to see Farrell’s vision to print as Dreaming Baseball. Farrell’s Donovan speaks, feels, and dreams for all baseball fans in this wonderfully rich novel about our favorite American pastime.

Genres: Sports

328 pages, Hardcover

First published March 23, 2007

About the author

James Thomas Farrell was an American novelist. One of his most famous works was the Studs Lonigan trilogy, which was made into a film in 1960 and into a television miniseries in 1979. The trilogy was voted number 29 on the Modern Library's list of the 100 best novels of the 20th century.

Reviews

[Rex Hurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took over forty years for this novel to be published and there is a reason for that: It is probably the authors most tedious work. It feels almost as if it was a work in progress that never reacted its full potential. Originally a 900 page document, the published version was worked down to just over three hundred and it still drags.

In many of this other books, Farrell got away with meandering storyline by running several interwoven narratives simultaneously, but as this is written in first person so we are stuck with the same character throughout the book's run. The plot is good focusing on a rookie player who scores his dream job as a player on the White Sox just as they go into their 1919 season. He comments on the scandal without being part of it. But it takes too long for the story to get there and fiddled about with characters whom we aren't interested in.

The novel is packed with Farrell's characteristic meticulous detail to the times and places, morays and morals, details and deals of that particular age, but it also makes an assumption of knowledge on behalf of the reader that they know who the White Sox were, who the main players were then, and the details concerning the scandal. If you don't know these then you will be either lost or bored, possibly both.

It gives me no joy to write these words. Farrell is one of my favorite authors, but this is the least of his works.

[Steve Shilstone · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel deserves a spot on the bookshelf of any baseball history buff, but maybe not on the bookshelf of anybody else.