Tales of the Diamond - Selected Gems of Baseball Fiction

Starting with former commissioner Fay Vincent's splendid foreword--"When we read about Baseball," he writes, "we are taking Baseball home, which is where of course all Baseball yearns to be"--straight through a stellar lineup that includes Damon Runyon, Thomas Wolfe, Zane Gray, and Paul Gallico, Tales pounds out hit after solid hit. The 14 stories collected here are all Cooperstown quality: James Thurber's "You Could Look It Up," W.P. Kinsella's "The Thrill of the Grass," Runyon's "Baseball Hattie," and P.G. Woodhouse's "The Pitcher and the Plutocrat" are probably the most well known in the group, but there's not a weak bat in the order. There are also more than a few surprises, like "braves 10, giants 9" by Shirley Jackson--her nonbaseball short story, "The Lottery," may be one of the most anthologized of all time--and T. Coraghessan Boyle's wonderfully rollicking "The Hector Quesadilla Story." Each of these Selected Gems--and, for once, the encomium is not blowing smoke--is joyfully illustrated by artist Miles Hyman's lovely watercolors. Diamond is, indeed, a rare diamond in the rough. --Jeff Silverman