The Game: One Man, Nine Innings, A Love Affair with Baseball - Softcover

Benson, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1585423416 ISBN 13: 9781585423415

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2004

Synopsis

In the spirit of Field of Dreams, a remarkable book about baseball and the meaning of life. A game between the Iowa Cubs and the Nashville Sounds at an AAA park in Nashville provides the lens through which Robert Benson explores the game of baseball and the meaning of life in The Game. It is an ordinary week night game in the early part of the season between two teams that will finish far out of first place in the Pacific League. But Benson shows us how in this average game of baseball, just as in our everyday lives, the routine plays-the seemingly minor yet vital moves, empty of bravado-eventually win the game.

In beautifully measured prose, Benson links events in his life to the innings in this baseball game. Married to a woman who can quote baseball stats with the best of them, and with two children who share his love for the game (his teenage daughter made the decision early on that she would be the first woman to play for the Yankees), Benson explores the ways in which baseball has always somehow shaped and defined his life. The Game is an extraordinary testament to the everlasting wonder and magic of the great American pastime.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Benson is the author of Living Prayer, Venite, and Between the Dreaming and the Coming True. He lives in Nashville.

From Publishers Weekly

"Whenever you run into me, wherever it is that we are, and whatever it is that we are supposed to be doing, it is wise to remember that I would generally rather be at the ballpark." Benson (Living Prayer) recounts his experiences in baseball, his family and life during this whimsical, flowing account of a minor league baseball game between the Iowa Cubs and the Nashville Sounds. The book is constructed in nine chapters, each prefaced with a quote from late Major League Baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti, to match the nine innings of a baseball game, but the structure is rather loose, permitting the author to muse on a variety of subjects, including the Chicago Cubs, his relationship with his wife and a book tour. Although overtly self-conscious, Benson tries his hardest to write in the tradition of high-class baseball writers (think Giamatti and George Will, rather than W.P. Kinsella or Bull Durham), and at times he succeeds: "Those who do not frequent baseball diamonds do not know about the cosmic principle known as If They See It, They Will Slide. If you are a kid, and you are running toward a base on a baseball diamond, and there is absolutely no reason to slide, you will slide anyway. Just for the joy of it. Just for the pretend of it. Just for the dust and the dirt of it. Just for the fact that some cosmic force requires it. It may well be how, if not exactly why, the game of baseball was invented in the first place." He does say some things that will rub a certain type of baseball fan the wrong way, such as that he roots for both the Braves and the Yankees. Literary-minded fans who believe that baseball is a mirror for life will enjoy this book.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1585423416
• ISBN 13: 9781585423415
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208