Giamatti on baseball

This came in the form of an e-mail from a friend who just finished reading "Ball Crazy." The book he mentions is by A. Bartlett Giamatti (former president of Yale and Major League Baseball) and is a classic -- packing quite a bit of eloquence, insight and philosophy into its 100-something pages.

Ever read Bart Giamatti’s Take Time for Paradise? It’s about “Americans and their games” according to the subtitle, but as you might expect it’s most often about baseball. Especially the 20-pg final section, “Baseball as Narrative.” Even touches on your other trade, first quoting Marianne Moore:

Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting
and baseball is like writing.
You can never tell with either
how it will go
or what you will do.

“Serendipity is the essence of both games, the writing one and baseball. But is not baseball more than like writing? Is not baseball a form of writing? Is that why not why so many writers love baseball?”