Home Field: 9 Writers at Bat

This fine collection of baseball essays is unified by its focus on the Northwest, where baseball is different. The writers generally see the game as an activity for ordinary people rather than as a professional sport. Of course, the Seattle Mariners are mentioned, but most of the essays emphasize the experience of learning the game in childhood, of struggling to become part of a team. My favorite pieces appear early in the volume. "The Warriors," by Native American Sherman Alexie, begins with the statement "I hate baseball" and goes on to analyze the rules of race and gender that a little leaguer is forced to accept. Lynda Barry, in "What Pop Fly gave His Daughter," impressively compares her bad relationship with her father to her love/hate relationship with baseball. I also like some of the essays that have a more positive attitude toward the game, such as "From the Church of Baseball: Different Hymns," in which Timothy Egan humorously describes coaching a girls' softball team. Here and elsewhere in the volume, our favorite cliches have to be reexamined, and sometimes one achieves new "life lessons," like "A routine ground ball can become a homer." -- From Independent Publisher--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.