baseball

[Tim Holahan]

  Somebody quoted an interview with James Merrill here not long ago in 
  which he said that Pynchon had something "more sinister at the center of 
  his web" than he (Merrill) did, or words to that effect. I thought it was 
  an odd coincidence at the time (I had just read through that part of GR), 
  but I was too lazy to go back and find the baseball mention.
  
  Interesting that these two peaks of 20th century American culture, 
  Pynchon and The Sport, would be described with these same words.
  
  As to the sinister in baseball, look at the titles of the best books on 
  the subject: "Why Time Begins On Opening Day," "Take Time For Paradise" 
  (Giamatti), "The Boys of Summer." The experience of playing or watching 
  baseball has a strange and dislocating effect on the perception of time. 
  The other sports I know do just the oppostite: make one acutely aware of 
  time and its passage. Baseball lures the participant into an enormous 
  array of cycles which move slowly and inexorably towards nothing (as far 
  as I know, there is no absolute end to a tie game; in the early days of 
  the sport games could go well past twenty innings). Entropy and human 
  endeavor never more seamlessly merged.
  
  I don't care if I never come home...
  
  All this tailor-made to be delightfully disturbing to someone who grew up 
  on Long Island during the glorious decade of New York baseball.