PERFECT GAME IN BASEBALL

Seeking the Perfect Game: Baseball in American Literature (Contributions to the Study of Popular Culture)

In this comprehensive study of baseball in American literature, Candelaria looks primarily at novels to explore how writers have used this quintessential American symbol and to examine what the metaphors and images of the fictional universe of baseball have to tell us about ourselves. Her analysis includes both juvenile and adult sports fiction and other types of literary works that draw significantly on baseball imagery. Candelaria offers a probing analysis of the progression from allegory and romanticism in the earliest baseball fiction to the realism, irony, and solipsism of contemporary narrative. Candelaria examines the origins and folklore of baseball, the development of its mythic status as the “national” game or pastime, as well as early literary treatments. Baseball soon emerged as a romantic and heroic metaphor in juvenile and pulp fiction and as a vehicle for ironic comedy in the work of Ring Lardner and other writers of the early decades of the twentieth century. Allusions to baseball in works by such literary masters as Mark Twain, Sinclair Lewis, and Ernest Hemingway emphasize the symbolic dimensions of the game, and its mythic possibilities have been fully exploited by more recent writers, notably Bernard Malamud in The Natural and Philip Roth in The Great American Novel. Increasingly complex levels of abstraction are characteristic of the baseball fiction of Philip Roth, Mark Harris, Jay Neugeboren, John Graham Alexander, and Robert Coover. Candelaria offers a probing analysis of the progression from allegory and romanticism in the earliest baseball fiction to the realism, irony, and solipsism of contemporary narratives. A stimulating work of literary and cultural criticism, this book will appeal to students and scholars of American literature, popular culture, American studies, and physical education, as well as to baseball enthusiasts.

Mark Buehrle’s perfect game vs. Tampa Bay, July 23, 2009. It was the 18th in Major League history. I actually sat in Seat 3; I sat in Seat 2 for his no-hitter two years ago. Thanks for the ticket, cousin Jim.

Please see my photos of the game in my "Perfect Game" set.

Jerry Reinsdorf officiates a pregame ceremony honoring the battery of Mark Buehrle and Ramon Castro, who tossed/caught a perfect game on July 23, 2009. DeWayne Wise was also honored for his amazing game-saving catch in the 9th to preserve the feat.

From the director of Angels in the Outfield comes the incredible true story of the underdog foreign Little League team who inspired two nations. Clifton Collins Jr. (Star Trek) heads an all-star line-up of some of Hollywood’s brightest young stars as Cesar, who returns to his native Monterey, Mexico after his major league career is cut short. Moises Arias (Hannah Montana), Jake T. Austin (Wizards of Waverly Place) and Ryan Ochoa (iCarly) costar as impoverished baseball-loving kids who recruit him to coach their rag-tag team. Together, they beat the odds and overcome hardships and bigotry to compete in the 1957 Little League World Series. Screen favorites Cheech Marin (Spy Kids), Lou Gossett Jr. (Iron Eagle), Bruce McGill (Animal House), Emilie de Ravin (Lost) and David Koechner (Anchorman) are featured in this uplifting story in the winning tradition of Hoosiers that Boxoffice magazine cheered as “inspiring, richly entertaining, heartfelt…a perfect family movie.”