Tom Lynch

It's time for us to embrace the healing power of sports. Yes, sports. As the baseball season opens across America, we are once again reminded that our pastime does indeed still carry history and tradition. Despite the inevitable strike-talk and the countless number of overpaid, whiny ball players, we are presented with an innocent, self-reflexive example of summer entertainment, something enjoyed by both adults and children.

To accompany the first pitch, Southern Illinois University Press has published "Bottom of the Ninth: Great Contemporary Baseball Short Stories," a collection of stories by various writers that all use baseball as their muse. Edited by John McNally, the montage of stories about hitters, pitchers, and umpires displays wide varieties of emotional dishevelment, consistently putting the reader in the game, making the green of the grass present, and leaving the sound of the ball hitting the bat ringing. The smell of your little-league mitt is in these pages, as the aptly titled collection finds its characters in transitional stages of growth, making choices that will certainly alter their futures, just as a real major-leaguer makes the choice to throw a fastball or a slider.

Bottom of the Ninth: Great Contemporary Baseball Short Stories

Edited by John McNally

Southern Illinois University Press, $18, 224 pages

(2003-04-09)

Also by Tom Lynch

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