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Page 3 of 7
Baseball Love, by George Bowering, is non-fiction, but it's
very different from everything else described here. Bowering is big
on road trips and minor-league ballparks. This passion started with
trips to see the Everett Aqua Sox and the Tacoma Rainiers, then
expanded into a couple of cross-continent trips. Bowering uses these
road trips to stitch together observations and anecdotes about
baseball culture.
Bowering doesn't just describe teams and ballparks, although
you'll learn a lot about ball caps and uniforms when you read this
book. He also tells you how crowds in Dayton, OH are very different
from crowds in Missoula, MT and Schaumburg, IL. His wife and agent,
Jean Baird, also has some definite opinions about mascots.
There's much more in these 253 pages. Bowering played baseball and
fast-pitch softball until the age of 66, and he tells of his
experiences in the Vancouver-area Kosmic League, which existed in the
1970's, and the more recent Twilight League. There's a chapter about
his youth in Oliver, when there was a team called the Oliver Elks
which played in a league with Vernon, Kelowna, Penticton, Omak, and
Chelan. Bowering's baseball travels include the Grand Forks
International tournament, and he has even attended some Thunderbird
home games.
What really matters, though, is Bowering's entertaining style of
writing. He is, after all, the first Parliamentary Poet Laureate of
Canada, and he has won a couple of Governor General awards. The are
passages throughout this book that made me laugh. Two in particular
were a “first pitch” ritual at the home opener of the Niagara
Stars of the short-lived Canadian Baseball League in chapter 3, and a
conversation with a Department of Homeland Security employee at a
border crossing in Saskatchewan in chapter 11. (Note to UBC
management: Bowering likes to throw out first balls.)
Obviously, I have a very high opinion of this book. I'll admit to
some bias here. Bowering shares my dislike of the Yankees (sorry,
Cory) and the designated hitter rule. He also spends some time
praising Jim Piersall, who I saw play many times when he was with the
Washington Senators in the 1960's.
Excerpt: Oliver's
golden baseball (chapter 4)
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