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The Mudville Heritage: Baseball in Folklore and Fiction
The Mudville Heritage Baseball in Folklore and Fiction Author:Tristram Potter Coffin "A lovely fly ball of a book with a graceful trajectory that a good — breeze might lift over the wall." - Publishers Weekly — — The Mudville Heritage, originally published in 1971 as The Old Ball — Game, covers the lore and legend of baseball as no other book before or — since. Folklorist Tristram P. Coffin treats baseball as an integr... more »al part
of America's epic story. He discusses the legends, proverbs, speech, and
superstitions that have developed out of the game, and then proceeds to
a witty and wicked dissection of the "never-never land" of dime
novelists and what he calls the "hunky-dory" sports writers of the early
to mid-twentieth century.
Baseball lovers will find here a trove of stories and anecdotes about
the national past-time, its stories, legends, and the colorful players
in its history, including Wee Willie Keeler, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Babe
Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson and many more.
Special attention is paid to the role of Ring Lardner and the "tough
talk" school of sports reporting and the popular literature of baseball.
Coffin concludes the book with a masterly account of the efforts of
serious writers to realize the elusive dream of writing the "Great
American Baseball Novel," including such luminaries as Bernard Malamud,
Robert Coover, Thomas Wolfe and Nelson Algren.
Baseball is woven throughout American culture and history as no other
sport; as Coffin deftly demonstrates, its stories and special language
have become part and parcel of the American soul.
With a new foreword by major league baseball pitcher (known as "the
smartest man in baseball") Craig Breslow, The Mudville Heritage will
provide baseball fans and general readers alike an appreciation of the
enduring myths and stories that have given our country so much of its