Contents

Introduction

The Cubs and Conservatism The Fan's Funny Sort of Seriousness The Most Consoling Word: "Overdue" Players Are Bought and Sold? Say It Ain't So. Warren Buffett Misses a Gravy Train The Chicago Water Beetles Alexander Cartwright and the Joy of Baseball The Case for I.T. (Ineptitude Transfer) The 1980 Cubs' Strength: Candor The Answer Is: Ronald Reagan. The Question Is: Who Is the Only Person to Have Held America's Two Most Difficult Jobs? Baseball and Socialism Baseball and Communism The Earl The Pythagoras of Winchester, Kansas Ancient Greece Got It Right Speaking Stengelese Baseball in the Unmitigated City Baseball by the (Elias) Book The Answer Is Harry Chiti. The Question Is... The Nation's Failings in the National Pastime The Work of Louisville's Fathers Ring Lardner, Call Your Office La Plata's Cheerfulness Quotient The DH: On the Other Hand... Blue-Collar Government The Fuse That Lit the Fire Perhaps the Players Are Livelier Systems Equilibrate, Really. Skill, and "Mere" Will "The Moment's Over" Let There Be Lights Good Character, Not Good Chemistry A Mosaic of Memories Play Bail! Revenge of the Ectomorphs Pete Rose's Chromosomes Living on the Lip of a Volcano Pete Rose and His Friends A Professional Catcher The 1990 Lockout: No Hits, Many Errors The Prodigy George Steinbrenner: An Acquired Taste Baseball Lit. 101 Blame Burt Wilson George Will's Baseball: A Conservative Critique by Donald Kagan The Romantic Fallacy in Baseball -- A Reply to Donald Kagan Chicago Baseball: "Never a Lovely So Real" Baseball Along the Backroads "I Can't Stand It, I'm So Good" The Season of '41 The Collision Between Bart and Pete Marvin Miller: Sore Winner Local Ownership and Other Traditions Love at Camden Yards The Lurid Monotony of Billy Martin Steve Palermo's Game of Inches Baseball's Basic Dilemma Fifties Baseball: Not Long on Nuance Andy Van Slyke and the Present Monetary Status of Baseball Bill Rigney: Baseball's Favorite Uncle Coming Back to Clark and Addison John Olerud: Not Neon A Stupendous Mystery Tony Gwynn, Union Man The 14 Million, and the 276 Million Babe Ruth, Replacement Player The Strike: A Postmortem A Grown-Up Brett Butler, Human Bunt The Infield Fly Rule and the Absence of Chivalry A Splash of History as a Cure for Nostalgia Hard Feelings Along the Lower Hudson River Explaining the Power Surge: Up from Oliver Stone Dred Scott in Spikes Leyland in Teal Alomar in Context The Argument Against Democracy Fans to Owners: "Down in Front" Purists vs. Impurists "Them Are the Bases" Miller Time

Conclusion 1998: OK, Try to Top This Acknowledgments Index Art Credits and Text Permissions