Guest Author - David Landry

Baseball is known as the sport of the literati and has been the subject of a number great books, like “Shoeless Joe” by W.P. Kinsella and “The Natural” by Bernard Malamud. Despite that, a search of baseball fiction on Amazon will return pages and pages of youth novels. New adult fiction about baseball is a rarity. When I received George Jansen’s novel for review, I was skeptical. What I found was a delightful fin de siècle tale bringing together the dawn of the American Century, the demise of a small California town and the evolution of baseball from club sport to professional entertainment.

The novel is set in the fictional Northern California coastal town of Port Newton, which has recently undergone the collapse of the local bank and the resulting erosion of the local economy. The Port Newton Athletic Club’s baseball team has fallen on hard times – the players are aging and the neighboring teams are dominating them. A new arrival literally washes ashore – former big league pitcher “Chief" Dobbs. When Dobb’s is revived and subsequently enticed to join the Port Newton squad, the prospects for baseball and the ton in general seem to take a turn for the better.

Needless to say, one professional ringer leads to another and soon the local players are winning all their side bets, but riding the pine rather than playing the game they love. Many start to ask whether it’s all worth it. I couldn’t help notice the parallel between the Port Newton nine and my beloved Red Sox. By emulating the Yankees, we’ve found success, but at what price to our souls?

The conflict in Port Newton plays out entertainingly and raises a number of excellent questions along the way. What is the right balance of commercialism and sport? How important is winning? Citizens of Port Newton come to varying conclusions about how much they should embrace the professionalization of the sport and how important the amateur ideal is for them.

I also enjoyed the dialog. Many of the characters speak an appealing form of slang that’s like something from a Damon Runyon story. There are multiple narrators who bring their own slant to the story.

If you have a baseball fan who also enjoys fiction, then I recommend “The Fade-away” as a Christmas present. There’s baseball history, old-style box scores, and archaic terms such as the title (a fade-away is a breaking pitch, likely a slider or screw ball). It’s an excellent way to pass a few hours while waiting for the 2008 season to start.


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