Sports Saturday Last Sunday was a very good day for Colorado Rockies player Carlos Gonzalez. He hit for the cycle (a single, a double, a triple and a home run), a feat that has occurred only 291 times in the history of baseball. Furthermore, the home run was of the walk-off variety, occurring in the […]
Tag Archives: Baseball
George Steinbrenner, Not a Hollow Man
Sports Saturday Mistah Steinbrenner—he dead. So I imagine T. S. Eliot announcing the death of the legendary Yankee owner this past week. That’s because, if one goes by Eliot’s famous 1925 poem “The Hollow Men,” one could not say that “the Boss” was “Shape without form, shade without colour,/ Paralysed force, gesture without motion.” In fact, an […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Hollow Men", George Steinbrenner, Sports, T. S. Eliot Comments closed
The Perfect Game that Wasn’t
Armando Galarraga Sports Saturday Even as we stand on the precipice of the World Cup—tragically I will be traveling cross country today when the U.S. is playing England—something has been happening in the world of baseball that invites comment. Perfect games are breaking out all over. A pitcher pitches a perfect game if no runner […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Luxury Boxes", Bruce Cohen, Great American Novel, Perfection, Philip Roth, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sports Comments closed
Take Me Out to the Luxury Boxes
Sports Saturday We’ve long had an active poetry series at St. Mary’s, and periodically a wonderful new voice will swim into my consciousness. Bruce Cohen from the University of Connecticut is the latest. Cohen has a wonderfully wandering surrealistic style. Often, as in the poem below, he gives us a narrative that is easy to […]
Pitchers and Poets Avoid the Obvious
Sports Saturday Some of my favorite moments as a father came in watching my three sons play sports. Justin, my oldest whom I am remembering this week, was a fine baseball pitcher and outfielder. Two plays especially stand out for me: a diving catch he made as centerfielder in an all-star game when he was […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Pitcher", Crafty Reader, Francis (Robert), Robert Francis, Robert Scholes, Sports Comments closed
Jackie Robinson, Poetry in Motion
Jackie Robinson steals home Sports Saturday In the memorial service held at St. Mary’s College for Lucille Clifton two weeks ago, I learned that she had three special heroes: Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, and Jackie Robinson. Robinson, of course, was the African American player who broke the baseball color line in 1947, which he […]
The Meaning of Cub Fan Suffering
Sports Saturday In one of the tidiest sports weekends of the year, one sports comes to an end while another begins. March Madness holds its semi-final and final games while baseball kicks off its season. To celebrate opening day, I promise reader Carl Rosin a write-up on a baseball novel. It seems like the great baseball novels […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Robert Coover, Sports, Universal Baseball Association Comments closed
Hoops for Madness, Baseball for Lit
Sports Saturday March Madness—the American college basketball play-offs—is officially underway. As is the tradition, the first round has witnessed a host of upsets, including Georgetown, a favorite in my area. (Another favorite, Maryland, won late last night.) As I scan the scores, I find myself wondering why there isn’t more good literature about basketball. In fact, […]
Steve Sax Disease, a Ticket to Freedom
author Jerry Gabriel Sports Saturday Saturday posts are devoted to the intersection of literature and sports. To gain access to all the posts on sports, click “sports” in the tag cloud to your right. My creative writing colleague Jerry Gabriel has just published Drowned Boy (Sarabande Books, 2010), a collection of his short stories that won […]
