Cover; Table of Contents; Foreword; Preface; I. Baseball in Scholarly and Spiritual Contexts; Baseball Studies; Proselytizing Pastime; "Blasphemous Youths" and Sunday Baseball; II. Baseball in Cultural and Literary Contexts; What's "Not Cricket" Ain't Necessarily Baseball Either; "Minds of Fleetful Thoughts"; Staging a Feminist Movement in Baseball; Baseball at the D.C. Diamond; Re-Reading The Natural in the 21st Century; "An Offense Against Memory"; "What the Hell Did You Trade Jay Buhner For?"; Hard-Boiled Baseball; Change of a Nation; Putting the Ball Cap on James Joyce
The Inevitable Last PitchIII. Fiction; Politics as Usual; A Wicked Curve; IV. Baseball in Historical and Reflective Contexts; The Day The Part-Timers Were Champions; The Contributions of Tom Wilson; Pumpsie Green; When Every Mudville Joined a League; How to Write a Great Baseball Story; Nothing's Wrong with Baseball; What Baseball Makes; About the Contributors; Index
Summary
The Conference on Baseball in Literature and American Culture has consistently produced a strong body of scholarship since its inception in 1995. Essays presented at the 2008 and 2009 conferences are published in the present work. Topics covered include religion; class and racial dichotomies in the literature of cricket and baseball; re-reading The Natural in the 21st century; the feminist movement; Don DeLillo's Game 6; baseball in Seinfeld; Robert B. Parker; Harry Stein's Hoopla; Negro league owner Tom Wilson's impact on Nashville; Major League Baseball's postwar boom; and overwrought baseba
