"Take me out to the ballgame" : baseball as determinant in selected American fiction
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1979
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Serious baseball fiction has been narrated from several different perspectives. Among the best American baseball novels are Ring Lardner's "You Know Me Al," a first person epistolary novel; Mark Harris' "The Southpaw," "Band the Drum Slowly," and "A Ticket for a Seamstitch," a trilogy of first person central novels; Philip Roth's "The Great American Novel," using the first person peripheral viewpoint; Bernard Malamud's "The Natural," a third person omniscient narrative that focuses mainly on a central character; and Robert Coover's "The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.," a metafictional novel using a central reflector before moving into an unmediated presentation of the fictional world within the fiction. Tin these novels baseball serves as a determinant of microcosm, character, structure, action, and ethics. Baseball's ordered society provides a workable microcosm for America, for it is filled with both stereotyped and particularized representatives of many segments of American society. Lardner places his fictional characters in the midst of actual major league players. Harris and Malamud present fictional teams within the context of major leagues peopled by fictional characters. Roth creates a fictional league parallel to the majors. Coover's microcosm is complete in an association created by J. Henry Waugh, his central character. The combination of meticulous statistics and myriad legends gives an author both individuals and stereotypes upon which to base his characters. Characters may be based on the stereotypes of the rookie or star or on the peculiarities of a Babe Ruth or a Joe Jackson. Characters may also be developed by their baseball actions or their attitudes toward the game. The novels use the season cycle of baseball as the determinant providing the time frame of the action. In addition, the feeling of baseball time as determined by the individual game suggests the timeless past and the timeless future, for game time is not controlled by a clock, being endless - incomplete until the last out is made and a decision reached.
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