The Dixon Cornbelt League and Other Baseball Stories

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The Dixon Cornbelt League and Other Baseball Stories

by W.P. Kinsella

3.79 · rating details · 101 ratings · 8 reviews

Shortstops who run with the wolves, painted eggs that reveal deeply disturbing meanings, long-dead Hall of Famers who miraculously return to the game, an Iowa minor-league town with a secret conspiracy: these are the elements from which W. P. Kinsella weaves nine fabulous stories about the magical world of baseball.From the dugouts, clubhouses, bedrooms, and barrooms to th...more

Paperback, 180 pages

Published September 1st 2004 by UNP - Bison Books

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Jan 02, 2011

Steve rated it

Kinsella deftly and most pleasurably combines three fine things: baseball, magical realism, and the short story. Weaving baseball into stories from Canada to an imaginary Caribbean country, from unaffiliated leagues through the minors to The Show, Kinsella does short story magic. The nine short stories all contain acts or hints of magical-realism-like events and most feature superbly created human main characters, most of whom play baseball at one level or another. Those are delightfully comb...more

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Oct 26, 2008

Will rated it

Shelves: baseball

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. It is a collection of baseball short stories. In one Caribbean outback, a player routinely transforms into a wolf, and continues to play. No one bats an eye. In The Fadeaway, an aging hurler conjures up Christy Mathewson, who teaches him how to throw a screwball. But the player never gets to try it out, and is doomed to fade away anyway. In The Darkness Deep Inside, a violent player finds Jesus and confronts a whole new set of problems. In Eggs a player tries to hang on while his Russian wife ma...moreIt is a collection of baseball short stories. In one Caribbean outback, a player routinely transforms into a wolf, and continues to play. No one bats an eye. In The Fadeaway, an aging hurler conjures up Christy Mathewson, who teaches him how to throw a screwball. But the player never gets to try it out, and is doomed to fade away anyway. In The Darkness Deep Inside, a violent player finds Jesus and confronts a whole new set of problems. In Eggs a player tries to hang on while his Russian wife makes traditional nesting eggs in their Canadian home. In How Manny Embarquadero Overcame and Began His Climb to The Bigs, a city boy scams the game, pretending to be mute, and works his way up from the Latin American Leagues on the basis of his unusualness. In Searching For January, Roberto Clemente emerges from the fog and sea fifteen years later, and is surprised to learn that he is dead. In Feet of Clay, Mike Wheeler is determined to be in the best possible shape for old timers games. What he does not realize is that the fans want to see old timers get old. Lumpy Drobot, Designated Hitter manages to take a manager’s suggestion that he take more hits for the team, to the point where one is absorbed into his skin. In the title piece a non-draftee is made an offer by a team in the Midwest. It turns out that he, and the other players on the team were scouted as those who choke under pressure, and thus were unlikely to make in pro ball anyway. They townsfolk are really trying to keep small town America alive by bringing in some fresh blood, something to counter the population loss of the genre. They go out of their way to be nice to the players and to get them set up with work, girl friends, a nice life. The protagonist, once he discovers the scam has to make a decision, to stay or go.

This is a warm, interesting collection. I suppose Clemente will always be alive and at the age he was at his death. I suppose the time comes to fade away for us all, and who could help but admire the enterprise of the mute Latin ballplayer. Nice stuff, with content enough mixed in with style. Not a must-read, but I am glad I did.
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Mar 22, 2011

Greg rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, fiction

I didn't enjoy this collection as much The Thrill of the Grass, but it was still good. Kinsella's short stories don't usually have satisfying endings.

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Apr 15, 2011

Tom rated it

Shelves: fiction

Gettin ready for baseball...put me in coach...

This book was a Christmas gift from Kate. Looking forward to the game on June 11!

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Nov 08, 2010

Jeremy rated it

Read it when I was a kid and loved it, especially the one about Roberto Clemente.

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May 15, 2009

Michael rated it

Shelves: real-books, baseball, fiction

This might have been one of the worst books I ever read. But it was about baseball, so I forgive it.

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Nov 09, 2010

Ray Charbonneau rated it

Shelves: general-fiction, sports

On-and-off collection of dreamy baseball stories.

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Oct 27, 2011

Javier Alaniz rated it

Shelves: baseball

meh.

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Jan 26, 2012

Nathan Rudy rated it

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Shelves: canadian

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About W.P. Kinsella

William Patrick Kinsella, OC, OBC is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. His work has often concerned baseball and Canada's First Nations and other Canadian issues.

William Patrick Kinsella was born to John Matthew Kinsella and Olive Kinsella in Edmonton, Alberta. Kinsella was raised until he was 10 years-old at a homestead near Darwell, Alberta, 60 km west of the city, home-sch...moreWilliam Patrick Kinsella, OC, OBC is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. His work has often concerned baseball and Canada's First Nations and other Canadian issues.

William Patrick Kinsella was born to John Matthew Kinsella and Olive Kinsella in Edmonton, Alberta. Kinsella was raised until he was 10 years-old at a homestead near Darwell, Alberta, 60 km west of the city, home-schooled by his mother and taking correspondence courses. "I'm one of these people who woke up at age five knowing how to read and write," he says. When he was ten, the family moved to Edmonton.

As an adult, he held a variety of jobs in Edmonton, including as a clerk for the Government of Alberta and managing a credit bureau. In 1967, he moved to Victoria, British Columbia, running a pizza restaurant called Caesar's Italian Village and driving a taxi.

Though he had been writing since he was a child (winning a YMCA contest at age 14), he began taking writing courses at the University of Victoria in 1970, receiving his Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing there in 1974. He travelled down to Iowa and earned a Master of Fine Arts in English degree through the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1978. In 1991, he was presented with an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from the University of Victoria.

Kinsella's most famous work is Shoeless Joe, upon which the movie Field of Dreams was based. A short story by Kinsella, "Lieberman in Love", was the basis for a short film that won the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film – the Oscar win came as a surprise to the author, who, watching the award telecast from home, had no idea the film had been made and released. He had not been listed in the film's credits, and was not acknowledged by director Christine Lahti in her acceptance speech – a full-page advertisement was later placed in Variety apologizing to Kinsella for the error. Kinsella's eight books of short stories about life on a First Nations reserve were the basis for the movie Dance Me Outside and CBC television series The Rez, both of which Kinsella considers very poor quality. The collection Fencepost Chronicles won the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour in 1987.

Before becoming a professional author, he was a professor of English at the University of Calgary in Alberta. Kinsella suffered a car accident in 1997 which resulted in the end of his fiction-writing career. He is a noted tournament Scrabble player, becoming more involved with the game after being disillusioned by the 1994 Major League Baseball strike. He currently lives in Yale, British Columbia with his fourth wife, Barbara, and occasionally writes articles for various newspapers.

In the year 1993, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2005, he was awarded the Order of British Columbia.
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