Guide to Baseball Novels: E
- Edmunds, Murrell. Behold, Thy Brother. New York: Beechhurst Press, 1950. A speculative fiction: what if, late in the 1945 season, a struggling major league ball club had signed a black pitcher – and then thrown him into action for the first time in the pennant-deciding game?
A strange fiction: on the one hand it's an art novella by a highbrow novelist; on the other hand, it's basically a kids' story, and is sometimes shelved in the juvenile section of libraries. Reflects the odd situation of "serious" adult baseball fiction around the year 1950; at the time, there were few models for novelists. In its action and theme, it's a taut, well-written story. Of course by 1950 the speculative aspect of the fiction had somewhat lost its edge . . . but I've been unable to find an earlier publication for the work. 
- Elias, Robert. The Deadly Tools of Ignorance. Cambridge, MA: Rounder, 2005. Graduate student turns detective to track down the killer of his mentor, a priest; the killer's next target plays for the Giants.
- Estleman, Loren D. American Detective. New York: Forge, 2007. Former Tiger great hires jaded private eye Moses Walker to keep daughter away from gigolo; much mayhem ensues.
There really isn't much baseball in this entertaining hard-boiled, and what there is doesn't convince; but Estleman makes an attempt throughout to portray a metropolitan community still united, tenuously, over major-league baseball. Darius Fuller is the last sports hero that the city has, and the novel and its characters care deeply about him.
- Everett, Percival L. Suder. New York: Viking, 1983. The slumping third baseman of the Seattle Mariners goes on a picaresque tour of the Northwest, remembering his anguished childhood as he totes around a saxophone, a record player, a briefcase full of drug money, an elephant, and a runaway girl.
An appealing, well-crafted novel, one of very few baseball novels with an African-American protagonist (and one of even fewer with an African-American author).
- Evers, Crabbe. Murder in Wrigley Field. New York: Bantam, 1991. Star Cub plugged in dugout tunnel; veteran wordsmith and pert niece solve crime.
This one kicked off a mystery series featuring protagonist Duffy House. It's packed with baseball lore and Chicago local color, but it holds almost no interest as a mystery. "Crabbe Evers" is a pseudonym for the collaborators William Brashler and Reinder Van Til. Not to be confused with the Troy Soos novel Murder at Wrigley Field: Soos's book is a period piece; this one is contemporary.
- Evers, Crabbe. Tigers Burning. New York: Morrow, 1994. Crime and baseball in the Motor City.
Another Duffy House entry; this one tries to get socially relevant with analysis of new-ballpark campaigns, race, and class in 1990s Detroit. But it isn't any better-plotted than the previous ones.
- Everson, David. Suicide Squeeze. New York: St. Martin's, 1991. Murder at a Wrigley Field fantasy camp dampens the spirits of the campers and sets a puzzle for a downstate sleuth to solve.
Wrigley Field is one lethal sports venue . . . this novel is entertaining enough, but not highly memorable.
