The art of fielding three

The book first mentioned at reference 1 and itemised at reference 2 has now been finished, all 512 pages of it.

Despite the occasional longueur and the occasional rather tiresomely graphic description of sex, a good read, interesting for its description of serious sport at a university in the US, of campus life and of the contemporary scene there more generally. Not so unlike that to be found in Franzen, who gets to puff this book on the front cover. See references 3 and 4.

At the end, despite, perhaps because of the gripping end, the whole plot seems a bit contrived and unlikely. But that does not really matter, it does not take much away: the plot is just a bit of scaffolding on which to hang the story.

One might also quibble with the choice of model for the picture on the front cover, who does not fit with my idea of the hero at all.

As far as baseball is concerned, the fielding in question being fielding shortstop at baseball, I come away wondering how getting to be a professional baseball player can be worth the candle. You have to devote maybe fifteen years of your young life to the game, perhaps taking a fair amount of physical and mental damage on the way, perhaps to find out that you do not make the cut, leaving you high and dry. I suppose it is not that different to our Premier Division football, but I cannot imagine being so keen on any such a game as to take such a punt. But then, I find it hard to imagine being keen enough on anything to take such a punt: I think I was cut out for the easy life, easy in the sense that it should be relatively low risk and not require sustained, extreme endeavour. Hard work is one thing; extreme endeavour with a high risk of failure is quite another. There is also the consideration that athletic heroes generally have a rather short working life, rather like the warrior heroes of ancient Greece.

A next step might be to take a peek at the wikipedia take on baseball and then take another look at the book. Knowing the way the game is played is not essential, but I suspect that it would help. As things stand, I may have moved on from my prejudice, acquired from a lover of cricket, that baseball is a rather crude and simple-minded game by comparison, but it would be nice to be able to make a more informed judgement. I dare say I should have done this much earlier in this particular game.

PS: the obscure reference to a brother in the post at reference 3, is probably a reference to Andrew Balls, the brother of the late Chancellor, now aspirant ballroom dancer, Ed Balls. While Andrew Balls was described by the Guardian, at about the time of that post, as 'emerging as one of the multimillionaire financiers pulling the levers at the heart of the eurozone crisis', so the reference might not then have been as obscure as it is now. And I hold to my views on puddings, various honourable exceptions aside.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/the-art-of-fielding-one.html.

Reference 2: The Art of Fielding - Chad Harbach - Fourth Estate 2012.

Reference 3: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=franzen.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=franzen.