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Baseball is the most literary of sports in the same way that World Series is "world" series :) You have to define the world as North America :)
by ajuc 5y ago
Baseball is the most literary of sports in the same way that World Series is "world" series :) You have to define the world as North America :)
- seanhunter 5y agoAbsolutely. It's the "most literary" of sports for the purposes of this article, but not really. There have been a lot of novels written which are either specifically about sport or where a sport plays a major part. A few other contenders off the top of my head which have some literary pedigree: Fishing - Old man and the sea Hunting - Practically all the rest of Hemingway from what I remember although it's been a while Grouse Shooting - Lady Chatterly's Lover Tennis - Lots of David Foster Wallace, but in particular Infinite Jest[1] which is set in large part in an elite tennis academy Basketball - The Crossover American football - End Zone (the author of the OP loved Underworld, but DeLillo didn't only write about baseball) Table Tennis - The mighty waltzer [1] Which actually has a lot about punting in American Football also
- elsjaako 5y agoI haven't read any of his work, but wasn't Hemingway famously into bullfighting also? I found this quote somewhere (haven't checked if it's real) “There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.”
- truculent 5y agoYou are missing soccer and Camus, who famously said "Everything I know about morality and the obligations of men, I owe it to football [soccer]."
- ajuc 5y agoAlso Kapuściński's "Soccer War".
- gpvos 5y agoIndeed, in most of the world football (that is, soccer) is by far the most literary sport. I guess in every country, the most popular folk sport is going to be the most literary sport as well.
- AlbertCory 5y agoNo one who knows anything about baseball would think that Japan, or Cuba, or Taiwan, or Korea, or anywhere else would have a chance against the MLB champs. Those teams are decent; that's all, and their best players want to move to the MLB.
- gpvos 5y agoThe point is that outside a small number of countries, very few people even care at all about baseball. The Netherlands doesn't call their national long distance speed skating championships the "world series", even though they, or the occasional Norwegian, usually win the world championships. In the same way, the epithet "world" does not apply to that American league.
- AlbertCory 5y agoSo why do you care what they call it?
- mshook 5y agoWhat's even funnier to me is the "world series" are what you get when the National and American leagues meet. National + American == World