Extra Innings: WRITING ON BASEBALL (Sport and Society) [Paperback]

Richard Peterson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 2001 | Series: Sport and Society

Where is the truth about baseball to be found? In nostalgic stories of the timeless bond woven between fathers and sons on the ball field? Or in stinging expose about manipulative owners, abusive coaches, and greedy players? Beginning with a mostly truthful essay about an exhausted university department chair who believes a visit to Cooperstown can save his soul and ending with the story of a delusional university professor who loses his mind because he takes baseball - and baseball writing - too seriously, "Extra Innings" tackles the question of how writing about baseball has shaped our understanding and misunderstanding of the national pastime. In a series of astute reflections on baseball histories, biographies, personal reminiscences, and fiction, Richard Peterson explores how baseball writers have generated and sometimes challenged the narrative myths of the sport and its players. He looks at the shifting balance of romance and fact in standard baseball histories, from the early (Albert G. Spaulding and Alfred H. Spink) to the more recent (David Quentin Voigt, Charles Alexander, and others). He offers a lively discussion of baseball fiction - from the tall tales of W.P. Kinsella and Ring Lardner to moral romances such as Bernard Malamud's "The Natural" - and assesses the realism of postmodern baseball writing. He discusses the influence of Jackie Robinson on the serious baseball novel and the reluctance of baseball fiction to treat race issues realistically. He also surveys baseball's fleeting appearances in the literary canon (for example, a passing mention in "The Great Gatsby" of the 1919 world series fix) and suggests a "top nine" reading list for the baseball aficionado. Slicing away the myths and distortions of baseball's bizarre history, "Extra Innings" travels the course from the sport's rowdy early days to its contentious present. Somewhere between baseball as business and baseball as religion lies the truth of a game that remains, despite its tarnish, regenerative and redemptive.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"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' more-obscure 'The Southpaw,' Peterson brings alive dramas and themes that have echoed for generations." -- Elizabeth Taylor, Chicago Tribune "Offers very useful insights into the short and long fiction of baseball literature... Peterson's guide is as much a handbook and companion as a collection of writings. The bibliography and list of books cited are also very useful." -- Choice "So you love reading about baseball. You've read The Boys of Summer and A False Spring and Eight Men Out. You're also familiar with books by other gifted baseball scribes... Maybe you haven't read all those books, but you've heard about them, and you plan to fill in the gaps just as soon as you have a moment to spare. Put those plans aside and read Extra Innings instead... [Peterson] adds a dimension to the discussion of serious baseball writing that has been lacking until now." -- David Shiner, Elysian Fields ADVANCE PRAISE "Baseball's roots run deep into the nineteenth century, and deep into the nation's literary culture. 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 "Extra Innings is an uncommonly perceptive critique of how baseball is responded to and written about. 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 and editor of Writing Baseball "Richard Peterson reads baseball and America in a set of pieces that are fresh, incisive, and informed. Enjoyment and learning went hand in hand as I experienced these Extra Innings, and I was sorry to see the game end." - Tim Morris, author of Making the Team: The Cultural Work of Baseball Fiction

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (April 12, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252069609
• ISBN-13: 978-0252069604
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,536,645 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Love of Baseball Literature, May 22, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Extra Innings: WRITING ON BASEBALL (Sport and Society) (Paperback)

The problem with most academic writing isn't that the ideas are too complex for the general reader to grasp; the problem is that most of it's too poorly written for the general reader to grasp what's being written about. Academic Richard Peterson, however, has defied the odds and written a highly accessible collection of essays in which he analyzes baseball literature -- the baseball short story and baseball novel, in particular. The book opens with a personal essay about a trip to Cooperstown with his wife, and this sets the tone of the book, which is, even in the analytical parts, personal. Here is a man who clearly loves both literature AND baseball, and in an age when so many literature scholars seem to hate the literature that they write about, Peterson's love of both is one of the great pleasures of this book. If reading about the art of writing baseball interests you, I highly recommend EXTRA INNINGS.