Number 21 July 1999
Winner of the Douglas Gold Medal for 1999
Bill MacGillivray
There can be no question that sport and athletes seem to be considered less than worthy subjects for
writers of serious fiction, an odd fact considering how deeply ingrained in North American culture
sport is, and how obviously and passionately North Americans care about it as participants and
spectators. In this society of diverse peoples of greatly varying interests, tastes, and beliefs, no
experience is as universal as playing or watching sports, and so it is simply perplexing how little adult
fiction is written on the subject, not to mention how lightly regarded that little which is written seems
to be. It should all be quite to the contrary; that our fascination and familiarity with sport makes it
a most advantageous subject for the skilled writer of fiction is amply demonstrated by Mark Harris.
In his novels The Southpaw (1953), Bang The Drum Slowly (1956), A Ticket For A
Seamstitch (1957), and It Looked Like For Ever (1979), Harris chronicles the life of Henry "Author"
Wiggen, a great major-league baseball star. Featuring memorable characters and deft storytelling,
these books explore the experience of aging, learning, and living in time, with baseball as their
backdrop.
Henry's first-person narrative is the most important element of these stories. Through it he
recounts the events of his life, his experiences with others, his accomplishments and troubles. The
great achievement of this narrative voice is how effortlessly it reveals Henry's limited education while
simultaneously demonstrating his quick intelligence, all in an entertaining and convincing fashion.
Henry introduces himself by introducing his home-town of Perkinsville, New York, whereupon his
woeful grasp of syntax, not to mention spelling, is immediately apparent:
Henry's intelligence is most effectively shown in his observations of others. During his rookie season he is
approached by sportswriter Krazy Kress, who wants Henry to be part of an exhibition baseball team which will tour
Korea. Henry turns him down without really knowing why, pausing shortly thereafter to reflect:
Henry's language is not only an effective means of self-characterization, but also well-serves another pleasing
aspect of these books, their humour. When Henry's quick wit clashes with his limited vocabulary, the resulting
trademark speech is an always amusing mishmash of mixed metaphors, misused and misspelled words, and
entertainingly garbled aphorisms that would make Yogi Berra proud. Often the humour is prominent, as seen in the
passage quoted above in which Henry suspects Kress of having too many "irons in the pie", but just as often it is
subtle and dependent on a careful reading, as in this speech in which Henry attempts to encourage his roommate, the
doomed Bruce Pearson:
When the narrative moves into descriptions of the physical action of the game of baseball, it seems nothing
short of poetic:
Henry's skilfully created narrative voice would be far less noteworthy, of course, if he was not so adept at
telling the compelling stories contained in each of these novels. Suspense, intrigue, and an unforgettable cast of
characters are deployed in the quartet to great effect.
All of these novels are made immediately engaging by virtue of the quick introduction of suspense, most
notably in It Looked Like For Ever, the ominous epigraph of which quotes a newspaper account of the results of the
autopsy of Ray Chapman, lamented for being the only man ever to be killed playing baseball. The first paragraph
of the novel has Henry shovelling snow when his wife Holly calls him inside without greeting him, and he writes,
"Therefore something was wrong and I planted the shovel in the snow and went inside the house. 2 days later when
we returned the shovel was still in the snow" (For Ever 1). Interest is piqued right away by the combination of
troubling hints of death in the introductory quotation and the tantalizing first paragraph. The way this novel begins
is also deliberately reminiscent of the opening of Bang The Drum Slowly, and therefore of that novel's theme of
mortality and the struggle to control whatever one can in life, and this echo serves to further increase suspense and
anticipation.
The element of suspense is also effectively employed in the brief A Ticket For A Seamstitch, which is the story
of Henry's roommate Piney Woods's infatuation with a female fan who writes letters to Henry about her slow but
determined journey from California to New York, where she plans to meet him. Unbeknownst to her it is Piney, not
Henry, who is answering her letters. With each missive she draws closer and closer, and the intrigue deepens.
Meanwhile, Henry is putting together an incredible winning streak on the mound, eventually arriving within one win
of Carl Hubbell's record of sixteen in a row. These twin plots develop simultaneously, and ultimately the arrival of
the Seamstitch coincides with the day of the game in which Henry will attempt to match the legendary Hubbell, the
suspense at its height.
Piney Woods is just one of a great many compelling persons Henry encounters, all of whom are developed
strongly by being imbued with a thoroughly human mix of quirks, inconsistencies, and varying temperaments. Piney
is a guitar-playing, cowboy-hat wearing rookie whose brashness grates on his veteran teammates. Henry's powers
of observation render Piney immediately memorable:
Holly is a woman defined by independence and good judgment, two qualities which conflict with her love
for Henry, who is far from perfect as a husband and father. As Holly grows older these traits do not change in
themselves, but they come to mean different things. In the beginning Holly, despite her love, does not wish to marry
Henry, which is remarkable in itself; girls in the 1950s were supposed to think of little else besides getting married,
and Henry is by now a rising star on a first-place major league ball team. But Holly resists his proposal because she
is afraid of how he is changing, how he is placing money before his own principles, which causes him to angrily
suggest that she "go ahead and marry some gas pumper. I am sure they are the salt of the earth" (Southpaw 305),
to which Holly retorts:
As Holly grows older she recaptures her independence. In It Looked Like For Ever she has farmed out the
chores Henry previously delegated to her to lawyers and household servants. She owns a private school and also
teaches there, and increasingly demands that Henry assist her in the care of their difficult daughters. Sadly, this seems
to be the result of disillusionment with her marriage, for though she still loves Henry she exhibits resentment over
his perpetual absence, his apparent preference for baseball over his family, and his certain infidelity. It is even
possible that Holly herself has engaged in affairs, an almost inconceivable thought, given the wholehearted devotion
to Henry she shows in the first three novels. When Henry considers in the opening chapter of It Looked Like For
Ever that Holly might be fooling around with a man at the hotel while he is minding their daughter, it seems like a
flippant remark. But here are the words of Red Traphagen, in a written tribute to Henry: ". . . he was encouraged
by his wife Holly, a woman of wisdom, toleration, and a genius in endurance; to each other they have been equally
loyal and faithful" (202-3, italics added). Red, it has been established, is a highly intelligent man and a close friend
of the Wiggen's. Is this merely a nice, perfunctory remark, or is it a sly jab at his friends? The truth is uncertain, but
it seems probably to be the latter, an unhappy if entirely human turn of events quite in keeping with the rest of this
novel.
It Looked Like For Ever is a more sombre and contemplative book than its companions, due mainly to its
being set near the end of Henry's baseball career. Like Bang The Drum Slowly, it is concerned with the struggle to
control the uncontrollable, life's twists and turns, represented in this case by Henry's conflict with aging. He has
been released from his team, is beset with various nagging health problems, and is frightened by the future. He
searches far and wide for a baseball team who will employ him, only to find that he is universally considered too old.
Throughout his quest he claims he is doing it for his youngest daughter, Hilary, an obvious half-truth; Henry simply
cannot accept that his time has passed. He takes great pains to hide his "prostrate trouble" from others, ostensibly
because it will hinder his chances of making it back to the big leagues, but in fact because he is afraid of the wearing
down of his own body.
Henry's anxiety over aging extends even to his extramarital activities, as he spurns the advances of the lovely
and hot-blooded Dr Schiff in favour of older women. Doubting his ability to keep up with her sexual demands, he
is agonizingly conscious of his own age when confronted with her youth and vigour. He gradually learns to cope
with the changes time has wrought, beginning, fittingly perhaps, in the sexual arena, as he proposes a liaison with
Marva Sprat, a middle-aged baseball wife, telling her he is "no longer interested in the 1 quick fuck" (For Ever 145).
She replies:
Ultimately Henry cannot begin to accept the truth of his situation until he gets that one last chance at baseball
that he so perversely pursues, and he does get it, by finagling a place on the California team managed by his paramour
Marva's husband, Jack Sprat. At first he is a great success, though he is immediately troubled by two undeniable
truths: first, the action of the game seems suddenly much faster, and second, his roommate, Tom, is the son of his
former teammate and friend Coker Roguski.
His attempt at a comeback ends abruptly when he cannot react in time to avoid a vicious line-drive that sends
him to the hospital. Now, at last, he understands: "This was no accident . . . this was nature speaking . . .it could
not have happened to me 5 years ago or even 2 years ago. I should have known" (For Ever 272).
This novel is both a funny and a bittersweet story, and an excellent literary depiction of the disorienting effects
of the passage of time: "Where has everybody went?" (275), Henry wonders as the tale concludes. His children are
grown, his wife has built a life of her own, his body is breaking down, he is no longer part of the game he has
obsessively pursued all his life. The careless reader might suppose that there is some pat moral here, probably
something along the lines of remembering to stop and smell the roses, or something equally banal and inept, but that
is not the case. Henry has led a most fortunate life, and enjoyed far greater successes than most. Should he, could
he, have done anything differently? No answers are given, precisely because there are no answers to be had, only
a life to be lived. Henry cannot escape his dissatisfactions, but he can relieve himself by ceasing to fight against them,
as he does when he wraps up his game films and sends them to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, "along with many
other silvernears of time gone by" (276).
These novels, especially It Looked Like Forever, ultimately are successful because they are so well written.
The expertly devised narrative voice, easy humour, compelling characterization, and thoughtful, even philosophical
storytelling combine to create a series of books which compare favourably to many included on the Modern Library's
recent list of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century, which seems not to contain a single novel set in the world of
sport. It is a curious prejudice, this apparent lack of respect for literature concerned with sport, to which these
novels represent a pointed and hearty rebuke.
Works Cited
Harris, Mark. A Ticket For A Seamstitch. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984.
---. Bang The Drum Slowly. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984.
---. It Looked Like Forever. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989.
---. The Southpaw. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984.
"100 Best Novels of the 20th Century." 11 Oct. 1998. Online. Internet. 23 Mar. 1999. Available HTTP:www.randomhouse.com/Modern Library/100best/index.html
Baseball as Life: The Henry Wiggen Novels of Mark Harris
Probably you never been to Perkinsville. How you get there you get an Albany train out of Grand Central Station. About half-way to Albany the conductor comes down the isle mumbling
"Perkinsville." Then the train slows and you got to be quick because most of them don't exactly stop at Perkinsville. They just slow to a creep, and if you're an old man or woman or if you got a broke leg or something of the sort I don't know how you get off. (Southpaw 13)
Notice how his knack for observation and his stylish verbal expression subtly belies the mental dullness implied by
his fractured grammar. The conductor is "mumbling", not simply "saying." The train "slows to a creep" instead of
just slowing down. The fourth sentence is given a conversational flair by italicizing the word "stop", which shows
an awareness of language not commonly possessed by people who abuse written English the way Henry does.
I will bet that somewhere under the haystack you will find that Krazy had some angle in it that he forgot to mention, some cash to be made most likely. I do not mean that he is a crook or anything
like that, but he has got so many irons in the pie that you sometimes begin to wonder. In his column
he is always promoting 30,000 things on the side, and if you keep a close watch you will see where
whatever comes along Krazy is somewhere where the cash flies. (Southpaw 241)
So Henry may speak and write like a yokel, but clearly he possesses a sharp mind. There is a delicate balance to be
maintained here, for much of Henry's charm derives from his unsophisticated, small-town ways, but at the same time
he must be believably portrayed as bright enough to have written these memoirs in the first place. A lesser writer
might have tried to accomplish this by creating a character who exhibits mainly dullness, interspersed with
incongruous displays of an otherwise unapparent keenness of mind. Happily, Harris is above such clumsiness, and
has met this challenge by constructing a language for Henry which consistently rings true.
"And tell me one more thing," I said. "Would a smart fellow like me room with a dumb one? How do people room with people around here? Do you room with your opposite type or do you room 2
by 2 like Jonah in the ark? (Bang The Drum 80)
This narrative voice, with its rudimentary grammar, obvious underlying sagacity, and humourous overtones,
is at its absolute best when it engages the subject of baseball. When Henry discusses its nuances his speech is energized with a palpable love for the game, his observations are strikingly perceptive, and his otherwise laughable habits of speech seem somehow appropriate:
To Bruce a pitcher is only a fellow throwing the ball, and a catcher is only there to stop it and keep the game from dragging, which is not what a pitcher is and not what a catcher is . . . a pitcher is a fellow with a baseball in his hand facing a son of a bitch with a stick of wood in his hand, trying to keep the man with the wood from hitting the baseball solid because if he hits it too many times the pitcher becomes a man without a job, and he is throwing with his arm and his brain and memory and
bluff for the sake of his pocket and his family, and he needs help. His catcher must help him, must
also be brain and memory and bluff, not only just stop the ball in case the hitter don't. A man's
catcher must be eyes and ears, watching runners, watching wind, watching the lay of the land behind
the box, watching the board, watching signs, picking up everything the pitcher might miss, which
Bruce never was . . . . (Bang The Drum 184)
This is just one of many passages in these novels which reveal Henry's wealth of knowledge of the intricacies of baseball. In this case he discusses the relationship between pitcher and catcher, how their individual roles must complement each other to be effective. Ruminations of this kind are especially enjoyable for the reader who is also a fan, for even the baseball aficionado will find he has learned something about the game from these books, but they are also interesting from a purely literary perspective. The long, run-on sentences on display in this particular excerpt appear often when Henry speaks about the game, lending such passages an impassioned tone. In addition his emphasis on the simplest, most human motivations of the players (survival, family), is a subtle means of showing that
Henry is an astute observer not only of baseball but of people as well. Finally, it is worth noting again how cleverly the narrative voice juxtaposes Henry's insight and thoughtfulness against his limited vocabulary and poorly constructed sentences to consistently display his quick mind while believably maintaining his charming air of insouciant ignorance.
I pitched it in noise and pain that I will never forget, letter-high and hard, the full wind and the full pump and the full motion, and he swang, and the wood on the ball made a thin slim sound like a twig you might break across your knee, and the ball went upwards and upwards, almost straight up, and Red called, not that you heard him but that you seen his mouth move, and the ball hung in the air and
then fell, down through the lights, Red weaving, dancing first 1 way and then the next, his big mitt
waiting, and then it hit, soundless, and he clapped his meat hand over the ball and turned and raced
for his mask and picked it up and headed for the clubhouse, and I followed, and a dozen hands held
me . . . .(Southpaw 321)
Harris writes descriptive language the way it should be written, vividly and clearly, so it is focussed and evocative
but never indulgent or excessive. The action here is described mostly with simple nouns and verbs, rendering the
prose lean and vigorous, making what little figurative language there is all the more effective for being sparingly used.
. . . Piney laid down on his bed with his feet on the wall, for he got this scientific theory if he lays on his back with his feet on the wall he saves wear and tear on the blood vessels of his legs, which maybe he does and maybe he doesn't for all anybody knows. He lays like that for hours studying his wall all hung with his guitar and his motorcycle and his drawings of naked girls and his reservation to the moon. Piney can draw like a mad fool. I'll say that much for him. (Seamstitch6)
Among other wonderfully conceived characters in these books one gets to know Harvard man and catcher
Red Traphagen; the fiery manager Dutch Schnell; Katie, the rapacious and conniving prostitute; the bizarre
team-owner Suicide Alexander; lusty psychologist Dr Schiff, and a gallery of others. All are given physical presence
by Henry's descriptions of their idiosyncrasies, desires, and frustrations. Of all of them the most important is Henry's
wife Holly. Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the characterization of Holly is how subtly she is aged and
changed over the course of the four novels, from wilful teenager in The Southpaw to mother and wife of twenty years
in It Looked Like For Ever.
"Henry, you are a stupid goon . . . It is not a matter of me marrying either you or a gas pumper. It is a matter of marrying a man. I do not much care what he does, so long as he is a man . . . But you are losing your manhood faster than hell. Pretty soon in bed will be the only place you are a man. But that is not manhood . . .Yes, you are losing your manhood and becoming simply an island in the empire of Moors." (Southpaw 306)
As he so often does, Henry wisely heeds her words, mends his ways, and Holly in turn gives in to her
emotions and agrees to marry him. Is this decision sound or a rare lapse on her part? Her independence is challenged
in matrimony, for Henry can be something of a burden, as she explains when he asks her to look up a fact for his
latest book:
"That is all I have on my mind," she said. "I have washing and diapering the baby to do, and your mail to answer and your tax to be figuring out and your insurance racket and your food and your car to be running in and getting greased and your telephone to be answering all day, and now all I am supposed to do is start reading your book all over again." (Bang The Drum 122)
It is somewhat ironic that her decision to marry Henry may have been flawed, since most of the demands he makes
of her stem from his wish to take advantage of her good judgment.
"Who is? . . . what you are looking for is the love affair, where you and I become acquainted over a long period of time . . . and you are coming and going between Perkinsville and Hilary's horses and
Ed Lewis's fences and dropping around during school hours . . . while Jack is away . . . You use to
be the wild young man. But now you are suggesting a very old fashion way of doing things. All
right, Author, be my guest. I will try anything once." (For Ever 146)
Though he is learning to adjust in his love affairs, the same cannot be said for other spheres of his life, and he fights
with a vengeance against the idea that he is too old for baseball, even going so far as to menace seventy-year-old men
with inside fastballs during an old-timers game. It is funny, the idea of stubborn Henry brushing back these no doubt
terrified senior citizens, but it is also sad, and painful to read. This particular scene is emblematic of the tone of the
novel and highlights the differences between it and its preceding volumes; there is an air of desperation to Henry's
actions throughout.