The Dixon Cornbelt League, and Other Baseball Stories
W. P. Kinsella
Language: English
Pages: 180
ISBN: 006017188X
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A collection of ghostly baseball stories by the author of Shoeless Joe, the basis for the film Field of Dreams, depicts a magical, mystical universe where the national pastime is always in season. 35,000 first printing. $25,000 ad/promo. Tour.
“Then do it. What it looks like to us is you’ve traded your balls for a Bible.” “Mr. Stark,” I said, “I thought you’d be happy that I was settling down. Remember how you yelled at me when I threw that bat into the stands two years ago? You threatened to send me to the minors last summer, the day after I broke the Toronto second baseman’s ankle. You did the same when I spiked the Cincinnati first baseman at the All-Star Game.” “You were colorful,” Stark said. “Colorful and controversial. Color
investments: this house, what? two, three million in the bank? Don’t be like those old boxing champions, ex-champions, their brains all puffy, still fighting years after they should have retired with dignity.” A completely reasonable argument. But wrong. “If I retire, I won’t continue to live here,” I say to Maika, not knowing I was going to say that. “I think living here in Alberta has contributed to what’s wrong with me.” “But there’s nothing wrong with you,” Maika says with a terrible logic
worried glances, letting me know as politely as possible that they think me mildly demented. What can I say? I have no proof, just an eerie feeling that they are doing something out of the ordinary. Something wicked. I met Maika Osadchuk the first year I won twenty games in the Bigs. We were married as soon as the season was over. She was a flight attendant working the Los Angeles–Honolulu run. When I first saw her she was wearing a bluebird-colored uniform that contrasted with her brown eyes
disappointment, though not unexpected; the Expos had drafted me fourth in my junior year, and I turned down a sizable signing bonus because I wanted to finish my degree, and because I felt I needed another year of experience. Well, I got the experience. If I had been injured, then I could have had something on which to blame my decline. My average fell from .331 to .270, my stolen bases from forty to nineteen, and I was caught stealing nine times. My play at second base, which has always been
Powell is in shirt sleeves, his gray suit coat over his arm. He might have been an athlete thirty years ago. Now, his thinning hair is combed straight back off a high, ruddy forehead. His belly swells comfortably over his belt. “Well, Mike,” he says, pumping my hand, “I’m sure you’re gonna enjoy your summer in Grand Mound. And, no, before you ask, the town wasn’t named for a pitching mound, though there was a town over near Iowa City called Big Inning, and it was named for baseball.” We make