Redemption Through Baseball

Any Southern literature worthy of the name includes at least four of the following characters: the misfit ex-con, the corrupt politician, the idiot, the fallen woman with a heart of gold, the preening preacher, the grasping merchant who nearly controls the town, the drunk. This book has them all, some in multiples, with a one-armed leftist baseball coach and farm co-op manager, several Native American cattle rustlers, a Black Muslim, pro- and anti-Castro Cubans, a lesbian ex-wrestler, and a parole officer with no sense of humor thrown in as well.

Written and set in about 1980, the book is the story of Hog Durham, starting with his release from prison for three robberies of the same liquor store (he actually committed only one of them, but he did rob a bank, but they didn't get him for that, but that's another story that shows up later). Hog is an experienced cattle rustler, and a strong hitter, but he's turned 30 and doesn't have much baseball left in him. In other words, his prospects are decidedly dim. But he's recruited by Lefty, a one-armed former major leaguer and former college professor given to left-leaning projects, to play first base for a new semi-pro team in The Dixie Association, a league with teams spread all over the Southeast. The team moves into a former Arkansas state home for fallen women, in which three of the women remain.

The story is fairly predictable from there -- the team's chase for the pennant, Hog's halting attempts at a committed relationship with Pansy, one of the fallen women who remained behind at the former state home, and Hog's difficulties staying clear of the legal system, which seems to be firmly committed to destroying his life. But this predictable story is extraordinarily well told, and the large number of characters and subplots (did I mention the Cubans? and the idiot? and the grasping merchant?) keeps the reader going.

For me, a special treat was the technical discussion of baseball strategy. Not because I care all that much about baseball, frankly. I don't follow it, and I quit playing at age 15 because I'd never been very good at it and I'd found other interests. But after reading this book, I finally understand the strategy of the game, and the technical distinctions between the fastball, the slider, the curve and the spitball. In my little league days, my understanding of offensive strategy didn't get much past "try to hit the ball," and I somewhat doubted whether those "trick" pitches were real at all (they certainly didn't show up in most of our little league games!). The author does a great job of giving the reader the player's feel for the strategy of the game without getting bogged down in technical analysis that is offputting to the lay reader.

A word of caution -- Hog and his teammates on the Arkansas Reds (did I mention the Communist subplot?) are at the bottom of society, and the author doesn't bother to clean them up. At times, Hog and the other players seem to represent fallen men left entirely to their own devices, whose interests are confined to whoring, drunkenness, fighting and talking about same in crisp, crude terms. Hays reads a little like Flannery O'Connor but without the sense of tragedy and futility associated with sin in her writing.

On a personal note, I read this book as part of the only successful book club I've ever been a part of. A local group of guys read the novel, brought the author to town for a discussion (he's alive and well and teaches at a college in Arkansas, and is a former minor league baseball pitcher), and hosted him for the Rickwood Classic in Birmingham, a "retro" game held once a year in the 100-year-old Rickwood Field, the oldest ball park in America, where the teams wear uniforms from past decades. The Birmingham Barons lost in extra innings, but that didn't seem to matter. It was a good day at the ball park.