In fact, what's most remarkable about the similarities between 'The Art of Fielding' and 'Fifth Business' is how well the former manages to match up with that classic novel as Harbach deftly explores the lives that are significantly altered by Skrimshander's throwing error. But one can't accuse Harbach of thievery any more than one might criticize knuckleballer Tim Wakefield for plagiarizing the delivery of his mentor Hall of Fame pitcher Phil Niekro. The events that form the basis of 'The Art of Fielding' are set into motion when Westish College's star shortstop, Henry Skrimshander, makes a bad throw that accidentally hits his roommate and teammate Owen Dunne in the skull. Set in Wisconsin on the campus of fictional Westish College, where Melville supposedly once delivered a memorable lecture, 'The Art of Fielding' reads a lot like a mashup of 'The Natural' and Robertson Davies' 'Fifth Business.' Davies' novel explored the lives that were irrevocably changed when a snowball missed its intended target, hitting an innocent passer-by in the head. Bartlett Giamatti and Annie Savoy ( Susan Sarandon's character in 'Bull Durham') would have loved. Eliot, yet sufficiently geeky to pay homage to the epic struggles of ill-fated ballplayers such as Steve Blass, Steve Sax and Mackey Sasser, this is a book that both Yale-president-turned-baseball-commissioner A. Erudite enough to reference Herman Melville, Homer and T.S.

But you'd have a hard time making a strong argument for any of these as the Great American Baseball Novel.Ĭhad Harbach's delightful debut, 'The Art of Fielding,' which is equal parts baseball and campus novel, may not turn out to be that book either, but it comes closer to literary Cooperstown than any I've read. Kinsella's 'Shoeless Joe' are probably best known for the baseball movies they inspired.

Mark Harris' 'Bang the Drum Slowly' and W.P. Then there have been the highly acclaimed novels, such as Peter Schilling Jr.'s 'The End of Baseball' and Mark Winegardner's 'The Veracruz Blues,' which still have not found a wide audience. Bernard Malamud's 'The Natural,' Philip Roth's 'The Great American Novel,' Michael Chabon's 'Summerland').

There have been fine works by terrific stylists, which have nevertheless managed to incur the wrath of some baseball purists (e.g. For all that Walt Whitman, Robert Pinsky, John Updike, Roger Angell and their ilk have written about the great American pastime, it's surprising how few novels about baseball have found their way into the canon.

The art of fielding by chad harbach