(In this issue's High Five, author Tim Wendel discusses his favorite sports novels)
Some say that sports and great literature have little common, and if one only follows talk radio or television play-by play it's difficult to disagree. But sports novels, even ones with a tenuous toehold in the genre, can have a profound influence upon our culture and writing. Here are a few of my favorites:
Years ago, my sister Susan gave me this book. The way W.P. Kinsella manipulates history, creates the perfect ball diamond in the middle of Iowa, a place where ghosts can come alive, simply blew me away. It's become one of the novels I reread every few years. Of course, the story was made into the movie Field of Dreams, which can make the most macho guy weep.
Story has it that when Bernard Malamud saw the movie of his famous novel, he kept repeating under his breath, "That wasn't in the book. That wasn't in the book." Thanks to Hollywood we've ended up with a classic story with two intriguing endings. Want a real-life fable told in a compelling style? Stick with the book. Looking for something that will have you ready to storm the ramparts? Watch the last 15 minutes of the movie as Robert Redford swings for the fences.
When I was much younger, without any money in the bank, my days centered on writing and running. I wrote my first book while living near the beach on Long Island. When I wasn't at my desk, I fell in with a local running group and somebody loaned a copy of this cult classic. Even though it's clunky, downright goofy in parts, the basic lesson remains one for the ages: You have to train very, very hard to be very, very good. That's secret Quenton Cassidy learns, and it still goes for just about anything in life.
Of course there are a great many sins in this gem. We have the tragic hit-and-run of Myrtle, Tom's diatribes about race relations, which sound eerily similar to recent town hall meetings, and Daisy's inability to follow her heart. Through it all, the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg stare down from on-high, like an Old Testament god. But any sports fan will recognize how rotten things have gotten in East Egg by a scene in which Gatsby introduces Nick to Meyer Wolfsheim. Of course, this is a nod to the 1919 "Black Sox" scandal when the World Series, then the top annual event in sports, was fixed. That was the biggest black eye for the national pastime until the recent steroids era.
Admittedly, there is hardly any sport, as we know it, in this glorious novel about love and obsession, set in provincial France. James Salter saved much of that for a later tale about rock climbing, Solo Faces. So why then a title that could belong to ESPN? In the introduction to the Modern Library Edition, Salter acknowledges that the title certainly didn't do much for early sales. "Not a book about baseball," read one ad, trying to set the record straight. No matter. The novel remains one that fans of any team will enjoy.