Amazon.com description: Product Description: Literary Nonfiction. Essays. A collection of essays for ardent seamheads and casual baseball fans alike, THE UTILITY OF BOREDOM is a book about finding respite and comfort in the order, traditions, and rituals of baseball. From learning about America through ball-diamond visits to the most famous triple play that never happened on Canadian soil, Forbes invites us to witness the adult conversing with the O-Pee-Chee baseball cards of his youth. Tender, insightful, and with the slow heartbreak familiar to anyone who's cheered on a losing team, THE UTILITY OF BOREDOM tells us a thing or two about the sport, and how a seemingly trivial game might help us make sense of our messy lives.