Weeks 2 & 3: Baseball's Best Short Stories

Moving on from "Casey at the Bat," we'll ease into the larger novels that will make up the bulk of our work this term by spending a few classes reading shorter baseball fiction by a wide array of authors.  The majority of the stories will be found in Paul D. Staudohar's anthology, Baseball's Best Short Stories, and you should be fine using either the older version or the recent reissue pictured here.

Our challenge here, and throughout the term, will be two-fold: to respond to these writings as literature and as literature about baseball.  In terms of the latter, we might appreciate a writer's thoughtful (or skillfully obscure) handling of baseball subject matter/lingo/etc. or the way in which the game and its players are used to embody larger symbolic meanings and lessons; however we shouldn't forget that while we're (hopefully) having fun talking about our national pastime, we should still be engaged in serious and detailed literary analysis.

Page numbers below are for the earlier edition of BBSS, and a few external links are provided:

• Tues. January 15: Ring Lardner, "Alibi Ike" (49), "My Roomy" (149), "Horseshoes" (221); James Thurber, "You Could Look It Up" (117)
• Fri. January 18: Michael Chabon, "Smoke" (133); Stuart Dybek, "Death of a Right Fielder" (355); A.E. Housman, "To an Athlete Dying Young" [link]; Max Apple, "Understanding Alvarado" [PDF]
• Tues. January 22: Garrison Keillor, "What Did We Do Wrong?" (211); Chet Williamson, "Ghandi at the Bat" (277); Kimball McIlroy, "Joe, the Great McWhiff" (303); T.C. Boyle, "The Hector Quesadilla Story" (375)