Field of Fantasies a Collection of Baseball Short Stories

Picture by Stephanie Maatta, The Quiet Image

We are well into the baseball season, and the boys of summer have worked loose their winter kinks. I usually have a baseball blog or two by this point, but his year I’ve been remiss. I recently finished reading a baseball anthology pulled together by Rick Wilber and Night Shade Books.

Wilber has written a number of short stories and books. His two main themes concentrate on science fiction and baseball. This made him an excellent choice as editor for this anthology, Field of Fantasies: Baseball Stories of the Strange and Supernatural.

It is a collection of short stories fusing baseball, fantasy and the supernatural. Authors on the fantasy and supernatural side include Ray Bradbury, Rod Serling and Harry Turtledove. Among the baseball notables assembled are Cecilia Tan and W.P. Kinsella.

The book opens with a story from Stephen King and Stewart O’Nan. They pen a supernatural story based at Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays. The protagonist, Dean Evers witnesses specters from his past sitting in the stands behind home plate as he watches games on television. Dean does not remember the good things about his life only the bad. It’s a combination of Charles Dickens, Twilight Zone and baseball.

In John Kessel’s “The Franchise,” he asks us to consider what if Fidel Castro and George H.W. Bush never went into politics. Instead they played baseball, and played against each other in the World Series. It’s an interesting mix of baseball and politics. Two other stories “Understanding Alvarado” and “The South Paw” also take a look at Fidel Castro playing baseball.

David Sandner and Jacob Weisman take us back in time with “Lost October.” A San Francisco earthquake causes a rent in time. Old, tired baseball fan DeRosa and his young friend, Eugene watch DiMaggio playing in old Seal Stadium of the Pacific Coast League.

My favorite story is by Cecilia Tan, “Pitchers and Catchers.” Spring training has always been a magical time. Dreams are made and lost during the month of March in Florida. She tells us a story of spring training in the Boston Red Sox camp. A rookie catcher hopes to make the Boston Red Soxs. He is teamed up with Roger Clemons. She does a good job of capturing the antics of spring training and the chemistry between pitchers and catchers before the rest of the team shows up.

Baseball has been around for at least 170 years. In 1845 The New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club published their rules and regulations. Since then the rules have changed, and it’s had many controversies and surprises. It is an integral part of our society and local communities. The short stories contained in the anthology try to capture that emotion and history as well as entertain. I used the ebook version for this review. 

Calico Joe by John Grisham

Baseball 1973, the National League won the All Star game. Teams tweaked their rosters for their run to the World Series. In John Grisham’s Calico Joe, the Cubs gave Joe Castle of Calico, Arkansas the nod.

Calico Joe came with a pedigree. His grandfather played for the Cleveland Indians, his father played for the Pirates. His brothers played for the Senators and the Phillies. The Cubs felt good about bringing him up. Joe rewrote the record books, and Cub fans visualized the World Series. Baseball pandemonium ruled the North Side of Chicago.

Eleven-year-old Paul Tracey became enamored with Joe. He listened to as many games as possible. He cut out articles from the paper and glued them in his scrapbook. Only one problem, Paul’s dad, Warren pitched for the Mets.

Warren was hard and Warren was mean. He wasn’t a good father. Warren ends Calico Joe’s career with a bean ball, a 98-mile per hour pitch to the head. Bam! Knocks the guy out, right in the eye.

In Calico Joe, Grisham writes a story depicting a slice of Americana. He gives us baseball at a point in time when baseball meant more than just money. Entwined in the story of baseball, we get family emotions, child abuse, adultery, cancer and death. We also get reconciliation and forgiveness.

Warren Tracey suffers with pancreatic cancer, one of the most painful and deadly forms. No one feels sorry for him. Grisham does a good job of vilifying the man, but maybe by the end you’ll feel differently. Maybe.

Paul tries to over come their differences, the neglect, the abuse, and the KOB (knock out by baseball). Paul wants to make things right, for Joe and baseball, not his dad. In the process, may be he does help his dad. You’re the reader, you decide.

Baseball books in general contain lots of statistics and trivia. This one has some trivia, but doesn’t overdo it. In the author’s note, Grisham admits that some of the facts have been changed to make the story flow better. Baseball aficionados will catch him on these. However, the basics are correct. It is Willie Mays last season. The Mets do make the World Series, and the Cubs are trying to catch them.

Much like baseball, this book pulls the emotional strings. At times you’re not sure if you love or hate the characters. Except for Joe, he’s perfect. It contains and revolves around baseball, but you don’t have to know baseball to enjoy Calico Joe.

A Summer Reading List of Baseball Fiction

Summer brings to mind the College World Series in Omaha, major and minor league baseball in parks big or small, and the annual All-Star Game, which really does matter. Opening day of MLB in April signals the start of our summer pursuit of the pennant in October. The game of baseball is filled with intrigue and scandal, heroes and heels. Summer also presents opportunities to catch up on baseball in other formats on those days when the home team is blacked out or rained out.

Blockade Billy, by Stephen King, is a departure from King’s usual tales of horror. George Grantham tells the story of bringing up young William Blakely from the minors to play for the Titans. But the novella offers its own uniquely chilling twist.

Double Play, by Robert B. Parker, imagines life in baseball after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. The story goes beyond this historic event, intertwining baseball with the criminal underworld. The novel focuses on the character of Joseph Burke in the role of Robinson’s bodyguard.

Once upon a Fastball, by Robert L. Mitchell, follows Seth Stein as he searches for his missing grandfather. Unlike the usual search for a missing person, Stein travels through time attending historic baseball games, catching glimpses of his Papa Sol.

Shoeless Joe, by W.P. Kinsella, fulfills the ultimate baseball fantasy in all of us – watching the famous and infamous play on the fields of our dreams. Kinsella explores myth, fantasy, and tests the limits of our willingness to believe. The Iowa Baseball Confederacy follows in the same tradition of fantasy and faith, with a little mystery.

Other Baseball Books to Consider

The Boys of Summer, by Roger Kahn

Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series, by Eliot Asinof

The End of Baseball, by Peter Schilling

If I Never Get Back, by Darryl Brock

My Father’s Game: Life, Death, Baseball, by Rick Wilber

The Natural, by Bernard Malamud

     posted by Stephanie Maatta Smith