Guide to Baseball Fiction

"The catcher hits for .318 and catches every day
The pitcher puts religion first and rests on holidays
He goes into cathedrals and lies prostrate on the floor
He knows the drink affects his speed, he’s praying for a door-
way back into the life he wants and the confession of the bench
Life outside the diamond is a wrench"

— Stuart Murdoch

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Criticism

This Guide to Baseball Fiction is a combination of bibliographic checklist and evaluative critical guide to over 1,000 works of baseball fiction. The opinions expressed are mine alone; but I have tried to acknowledge the critical consensus where I differ from it. This Guide is very far from comprehensive, but does contain the most-discussed works; I add new titles continually.

Baseball mysteries, the most popular sub-genre of baseball fiction, are included; they are listed along with other adult or juvenile novels.

Bibliographical information for each item is for the first publication. For short stories, I have tried to find original publications but have often noted reprintings in collections or anthologies, where the stories might be easier to find.

The definitive print bibliography of baseball novels, adult and juvenile both, is Andy McCue's Baseball by the Books (Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown, 1991).

Most works are given no stars in the ratings that follow each entry. That doesn't mean that they're bad, just ordinary. Within each category – Adult Novels, Short Stories, and Children's Books – the items are rated against other items in the same category; i.e. stars are given to children's books as children's books. Stars have been given to works by the following principles:

One Star: A work with something of true interest or originality.
Two Stars: A substantial success on its own terms, with much to interest a reader.
Three Stars: An outstanding work in the genre of baseball fiction. An essential work for students and general readers alike. Three-star works are rare. So rare, in fact, that I might as well list them here: Bang the Drum Slowly, The Celebrant, In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson, The Universal Baseball Association, and What Hearts.

I couldn't do this without the help of the InterLibrary Loan department at the University of Texas at Arlington Library. I also want to thank the staffs of the Arlington Public Library, the Great Neck Library, the Memorial Library of Radnor Township, the Perry-Castañeda Library at the University of Texas at Austin, and the New York Public Library, including the Donnell Library Center's Central Children's Room, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Special thanks to the staff of the Charles C. Sherrod Library at East Tennessee State University, home of the Lyle Olsen Sport Literature Collection. Warm thanks to everyone at the Sport Literature Association for their support of this project.

Comments are invited. E-mail tmorris at uta dot edu