DL Course: America Through Baseball Fiction

This is a trial balloon. The course described does not exist yet. If there is sufficient interest (not just here, of course, but out in the rest of the world too), the hope is to create the course, probably 100% online, under the auspices of some RA school. So if there are baseball aficionados (not necessary fanatics) here, comments would be most welcome. My only role is as enzyme -- trying to make a reaction happen without being part of it. Thanks.

John Bear
[email protected]

Darryl Brock is the author of three popular books of fiction with strong baseball themes. In the mid-1980s, he set out on a 12,000-mile odyssey that traced the tour routes of the famous 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings, baseball's first avowedly all-professional team. From extensive research in local history rooms of libraries, and from his conversations with people across the nation, Brock sensed more strongly than ever before the powerful influence that baseball has exerted on America. From this journey came his best-selling first novel, If I Never Get Back, and in the following decade two more historical novels followed, each of them employing baseball as a sort of literary transport into the past.

He is considering developing an history/literature course called something like AMERICA THROUGH BASEBALL FICTION. The course will combine a Ken Burns-like focus on our nation's evolving norms and values--as viewed through the prism of its unique sporting pastime--along with sharp attention to novelists' devices such as characterization, plot, setting, theme, irony and metaphor. Baseball has attracted more great writing than any other sport.

In these wonderfully captivating novels, students will encounter America's past (and therefore its present) in vivid fashion that no mere documentary
approach could hope to match. Along with providing delightful reading entertainment, thoughtful exposure to these significant literary works will
enrich students' imaginations and deepen their cultural understanding.

NOVELS WILL BE SELECTED FROM THE FOLLOWING LIST: (in chronological order,
according to each story's time frame):

1. Darryl Brock, IF I NEVER GET BACK. A modern-day reporter is transported back to the turbulent post-Civil War world of 1869 and the very beginnings of the pro game.

2. Eric Rolfe Greenberg, THE CELEBRANT. Turn-of-the-century America's new immigrants flock to baseball to worship heroes like the great pitcher Christy Mathewson.

3. Brendan Boyd, BLUE RUIN. A small-time Boston gambler stumbles on the chance of his life: to ensure fixing the 1919 World Series.

4. William Brashler, THE BINGO LONG TRAVELLING ALL-STARS & MOTOR KINGS. Barnstorming Negro League players tour the depression-locked country in 1939.

5. Bernard Malamud, THE NATURAL. The gritty "noir" original of a tough comeback try, not the flip-flopped, starry-eyed Hollywood movie version.

6. Philip Roth, THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL. A homeless big-league team, composed of misfits and bristling with classical allusions, wanders from city to city during the Second World War.

7. Mark Harris, THE SOUTHPAW. The first of four novels dealing with Henry "Author" Wiggen, a left-handed hurler for the New York Mammoths in the
post-WWII years.

8. David James Duncan, THE BROTHERS K. The father of a wild Pacific Northwest family in the 1960s pits his fading hopes of pitching again for a
minor-league team against the religious strictures of his wife.

9. W.P. Kinsella, SHOELESS JOE. A man follows a dream...of fields, naturally. Deeper & better than the movie.

10. Peter Lefcourt, THE DREYFUS AFFAIR. Love in the present-day Dodger infield.


NOTE: There will be an extensive supplemental reading list, with both fiction and nonfiction titles for each time period. Ideally, students will have some latitude to pursue individual interests and/or to read additional works by a given author.

 

If this is one course, I really hope it is a graduate level course. With the reading list, I doubt anything else would do it justice.

Tony
Who grew up talking with grayhairs in barbershops about baseball every week, if you will believe it. I loved it.

 

John, this sounds like it could be a great candidate for HUX if it's done in an interdisciplinary way (maybe adding some movies and/or music into the mix?). Might be worth throwing in some poetry, too (Dave Smith's The Roundhouse Voices comes immediately to mind, but I'm sure most of the great American poets since Whitman have written something about baseball). There's actually a literary scholar-cum-baseball fan on staff, but I can't remember who he is. Nicole could probably tell you.


Cheers,

 

From TeleCampus

1. BASEBALL CURRICULUM ACTIVITIES: INTEGRATING MATH/LANGUAGE/GEOGRAPHY
From : Fresno Pacific University
Description : This course has been prepared for use with students in the intermediate and middle school grades. Activities are designed to capitalize on students' interest in baseball by involving them in high-interest assignments that incorporate mathematics, language arts, and geography.
Graduate 1st year
English
$302.00 USD « Bookmark »

2. BASEBALL HISTORY
From : Loyola Marymount University
Description : Baseball has a long and proud history as America's national sport. Knowing its history develops an appreciation of the impact baseball has had on America and provides a tool to teach the valuable lessons of good sportsmanship.
Graduate 1st year
English
$240.00 USD « Bookmark »

3. PHYSICAL EDUCATION program!
From : Mary Washington College James Monroe Center for Graduate and Professional Studies
Description : Participation in physical activities, including physical education classes, recreational programs, and intercollegiate athletics, is an essential part of the educational experience at Mary Washington.
Post-secondary 1st year
English
Contact Institution « Bookmark »

4. BASEBALL IN AMERICAN CULTURE
From : State University of New York, Tompkins Cortland Community College, SUNY Learning Network
Description : This study will explore the role that major league baseball, past and present, has played in changing certain aspects of American culture. The study will begin with a discussion of the history of baseball through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and continue with converage of how baseball has created and reflected change in American society.
Post-secondary 1st year
English
$588.00 USD

 

John - if I remember correctly, there is a Baseball Encyclopedia over your right shoulder in the portrait on your website... What about books that feature baseball as a metaphor, like "The Chosen".

Now I am off to look over your shoulder a bit more to figure out the next course you might have in mind.

John

 

John Bear wrote: "If there is sufficient interest (not just here, of course, but out in the rest of the world too …)"

Baseball no-doubt dominates the American psyche, but is a minor sport at best nearly everywhere else in the world (with, perhaps, the exception of Japan).

I think John’s “sufficient interest” will only come from his home country.

Kind regards

 

Other notable exceptions, of course, include the Dominican Republic and Cuba. The only problem I see with the proposed course is that it involves fiction. In my opinion, it is often the case that truth is stranger (and therefore infinitely more interesting) than fiction.

For example, to see direct correlations between baseball and history, you need look no further than the Havana Sugar Kings, who sent thirty players to U.S. major league teams in just four years during the 1950’s and were poised to join the Major League until Fidel Castro banned professional sport from the island.

In fact, few seasons were more exciting or weirder than 1959’s, which included a bullet-ridden game in Havana pitting the Sugar Kings against the Rochester Red Wings. The season culminated in the Junior World Series between the International League’s Havana Sugar Kings and the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association (who were aided by a by the recent addition of a young second baseman named Carl Yastrzemski, who had joined the team during the Association playoffs.

Upon entering the stadium (populated by over 3,000 rifle-carrying soldiers, many of which lined the field or stationed themselves in the dugouts) for the decisive seventh game, Castro walked pass the Minneapolis bullpen, paused, looked at the players, patted on large revolver on his hip, and said, “Tonight, we win.”

 

Re: Re: DL Course: America Through Baseball Fiction

Well, who won?

 

Would Casey at the Bat be considered??

clint

 

Re: Re: Re: DL Course: America Through Baseball Fiction

Both teams won (the Sugar Kings took the series while the Millers escaped the country unharmed).