Professor Baseball: Searching for Redemption and the Perfect Lineup on the Softball Diamonds of Central Park

I loved reading Prof. Amenta's composite long summer of '05 of playing softball in multiple leagues in NYC. The cast of characters ("players") could have been Anywhere U.S.A., where adult slow-pitch softball is played---personality conflicts, tough decisions, other life events intruding, winning vs. popularity, sabermetrics vs. tradition, etc. I am experiencing the same angst right now, trying to play both senior slow-pitch softball as a rookie & still keep up with the "youngsters" in the church league version. Prof. Amenta is able to keep it all straight somehow, in an obsessive-compulsive way. I mean, how did he ever have time for his "regular job" as a sociology professor while playing in 4-5 leagues per week for months on end? In the end (finally!), it is the relationships experienced, the mano-a-mano camaraderie that linger in one's memory (which the author confirms). The game itself is simply a framework, a structure for such interaction. Ahh, but what a game!

I couldn't resist reading this book, captured by its wonderful title. Hats off, and three cheers, to the publisher for agreeing to issue this title. Professor Amenta is a bi-coastal university sociologist, trained at the University of Chicago. And this book is framed -- to his great credit with some subtlety -- in the century-plus scholarship of the so-called "Chicago School." Scratch beneath the surface and you'll surely discover that many a professor -- sociologist or otherwise -- enthralled with baseball aspired to write such a book. This is an ethnography, written in the tradition of the participant-observer (e.g., Herbert J. Gans, or more recently, Mitchell Dunier), associated with Chicago sociology). Professor Amenta, a failed Little League player from suburban Chicago, pursued redemption by playing in organized recreational soft-ball leagues in Manhattan. I won't reveal the outcome. Read it for yourself! We learn a great deal about the author's softball career ("Eddy ball"), academic career, and private life (the latter including a considerable amount of detail about infertility). Perhaps some will deem this overboiled, although mostly I found the whole thing tasteful, insightful, and even inspired. I especially appreciated the author's concluding observations about the real meaning of life -- professional as well as personal -- as well as his rich experiences on the field of softball dreams. Professor Amenta provides readers with a great deal to contemplate about what happens when culture and society reach an intersection. Professor Baseball may not be for every armchair baseball reader. But I certainly found it memorable and suspect that many others will subscribe to this sentiment.