Heat is on for cards / Dan O'Neill -- Softball memo / Ron Carlson -- Reaching home / Susan Perabo -- Death of a shortstop / Robert Vivian -- Opening ceremonies / Kyle Minor -- Hardball / Jocelyn Bartkevicius -- Brothers / Andre Dubus -- Jimbo / Rick Bass -- 2004, a Red Sox odyssey, in a hundred years and four generations / Tim D. Stone -- My life in the big leagues / Cris Mazza -- Bad case, a 50th birthday love letter / Kurt Rheinheimer -- Billy Gardner's ground out / Floyd Skloot -- Roar of the crowd / Leslie Epstein -- Trading off, a memoir / Michael Steinberg -- Begotten, not made / Gary Forrester -- That's why we're here / Peter Ives -- Fielder's choice / Lee Martin -- Fan letter to lefty Gomez / Jeffrey Hammond -- In April, anything could happen / Mick Cochrane -- What we remember, when we remember, what we loved / Earl S. Braggs -- Willie Rooks's shirt / Lee Gutkind -- Death in the afternoon / Hal Crowther -- Meat / Michael Martone -- From blue highways / William Least Heat-Moon -- Dispatch from Tucson / Larry Blakely -- Playing shallow / Richard Jackson -- Hard to love as the Red Sox / Luke Salisbury -- Roberto Clemente fictions / Rick Campbell -- Trading heroes / Jeffrey Higa -- Work-ups, baseball in the fifties / Christopher Buckley -- Jose Canseco, hero / Michael Chabon -- Babe Ruth's ghost / Louis D. Rubin, Jr. -- Throw like a girl, or what baseball taught me about men and life / Rachael Perry -- Sunday morning ball at the J / David Carkeet -- Good-byes / Tom Stanton.
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SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
Why do accomplished writers (and grown-ups) like Ron Carlson, Rick Bass, and Michael Chabon (to name but a few of those represented here) still obsess over their baseball days? What is it about this green game of suspense that not only moves us but can also move us to flights of lyrical writing? [In this book], writers as different as Andre Dubus and Leslie Epstein, Chabon and Floyd Skloot, Michael Martone and William Least Heat-Moon reflect on the game they grew up with, the players who thrilled them, and the lessons that baseball holds for us all. From the one-season wonder to the long-haul heroes to the hall of fame, the game that has framed so many American summers - and lives - comes to quirky, instructive, and always entertaining life in these pages.-Back cover.