This is my first book recommendation on this blog, and while you might expect a recommendation for a non-fiction book about sports and healing, this is a work of literary fiction that includes two topics that interest me a great deal. Both of them are baseball topics, and also so much more.
The first topic is gay athletes: there is a gay baseball player on the college team that is the focus of the story. I am still waiting for the first male team sport athlete to come out during his career. The world has changed just enough that this could happen sooner rather than later, and I sincerely hope it does.
The second is Steve Blass Disease AKA The Yips, the mysterious condition that affects a very small percentage of baseball players in which they are suddenly unable to do one particular thing, often the easiest thing that they do. In this story, the star shortstop makes a throw that injures a teammate, and as soon as he gets another chance, he finds that he has lost the ability to throw the ball to first base the way he used to.
I once attempted writing a novel about a baseball player that developed Steve Blass Disease. My main character was a left-hander relief pitcher who suddenly could not throw the ball over the plate. In my outline, he quit baseball and became a rock musician, had an epiphany, and then went back to playing baseball with a new perspective on life and sports.
What I learned trying to write that novel is that I am not a novelist, and that there's nothing wrong with that. I'm really grateful that Chad Harbach is a novelist--a first novelist--and an excellent writer.
This book is worth reading if you like books about literature, baseball, college campuses, self-discovery, and/or the mysteries of Steve Blass Disease.
© Judy Kamilhor 2011
