Tag Archives: Baseball

Roger Clemens, Greek Tragic Hero

By Robin Bates | Published: July 30, 2011

Roger Clemens tried to bully his Congressional interrogators the way that Oedipus bullies witnesses. To say that he should have handled himself differently is to say that he should have been a different man.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , | Comments closed

Memories of My Son, the Baseball Player

By Robin Bates | Published: April 30, 2011

I hope I may be excused for revisiting a poem I have posted on before, along with some of my previous observations about it. It is a sports poem that brings to mind my oldest son, who died 11 years ago on this day. Dabney Stuart’s “Ties” is out of season—it’s about football—and Justin’s sport was baseball. Nevertheless I feel awash in sadness and sweet memory when I read it.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , | Comments closed

Take Me Out to the Orgasmic Experience

By Robin Bates | Published: April 2, 2011

In his poem, Scott Bates fastens on the fact that the baseball diamond and the outfield, in their intersection, resemble a mandorla. An almond-shaped figure of mythic significance, the mandorla has been seen to symbolize “the interactions and interdependence of opposing worlds and forces,” such as spirit and matter or heaven and earth.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , | Comments closed

2010 Sports, Seen through Literature

By Robin Bates | Published: January 1, 2011

Sports Saturday – 2010 in Review Since New Year’s Day falls on a “Sports Saturday” this year, I’ll take the occasion to review the year in sports through the vantage point of renewal. The first year of the new decade had a number of joyous firsts. It was a year when the city of New […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , | Comments closed

San Fran Giants Strike out Mighty Casey

By Robin Bates | Published: October 30, 2010

Sports Saturday We are well into the World Series but I want to hearken back to game six of the National League championship series where the San Francisco Giants won the pennant. It was a game eerily reminiscent of that described in poetry’s greatest poem about baseball, Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s “Casey at the Bat.” Baseball […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , | Comments closed

Walt Whitman, William Blake, and Baseball

By Robin Bates | Published: October 29, 2010

Film Friday The World Series between the Texas Rangers and the San Francisco Giants gives me an excuse for posting on what is, in my opinion, the greatest movie on baseball. Among the many virtues of Ron Shelton’s Bull Durham are its literary allusions and its literariness. Each year Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) chooses to […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , | Comments closed

Doc Halladay No Longer Blushing Unseen

By Robin Bates | Published: October 9, 2010

  Sports Saturday The baseball postseason is off to an amazing start, what with Roy “Doc” Halladay pitching only the second no-hitter in playoff history to begin it. And it was his first game ever pitching in the postseason! The other no-hitter is enshrined in legend: Yankee Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , | Comments closed

Neruda and Ted Williams: A Fantasy

By Robin Bates | Published: September 4, 2010

Sports Saturday My colleague Israel Ruiz in our Spanish Department is an enthusiastic baseball fan. He is also Puerto Rican and I have learned a lot about the Puerto Rican love of baseball from him. For instance, did you know that Puerto Rico is second only to the Dominican Republic in providing active Latin American […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , | Comments closed

Stephen Strasburg Is Pitching Hope

By Robin Bates | Published: August 14, 2010

Sports Saturday There is nothing like a brilliant rookie pitcher to breathe life back into the game of baseball. Living less than two hours from our nation’s capital, I’m in the midst of the unbridled excitement over the Washington Nationals’ Stephen Strasburg. Strasburg had a bad outing as he came off Injured Reserve this past […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , | Comments closed