today at lunch (surprisingly tasty and cheap lormee at the everton park kopitiam, with lots of crunchy fish chunks although somewhat deficient on the pork belly and vinegar), followed by whisky cream ice-cream at everton creamery) julian tells he’s been to quite a few games back in philly, and that i was grossly deceived if i thought baseball bears even a passing resemblance to softball, that the rules are incomprehensible to the nth degree, but there was a good movie called field of dreams which might help me somewhat, and that unlike vaughn he enjoyed going to games, but the true point of games was for the chitchat and hotdogs and buzz, he didn’t watch what was happening on the field much. that, i said, is probably how i would go to a game.

on my deficient baseball education: john d. says piffle to all that what i need is a time machine to go back to forbes field before its demolition and see someone called clemente and another someone called mazeroski, and tells me that for baseball novels (since i’m asking) there is shoeless joe; the universal baseball association, inc., j henry waugh proprietor; and, in non-fiction, eight men out; and the boys of summer, which he tells me is exceedingly famous and an account of the fortunes and misfortunes of the brooklyn dodgers in the 40s. (this disposed me favourably towards the book right away, since they’re the first baseball team i’d ever heard of. and this is entirely from reading herman wouk’s the adventures of herbie bookbinder, also where i learnt the baseball terms short-stop and outfielder — herbie, who is a bit of a swot, was trying to teach the school jock poetic scansion, and gave him those words as the corresponding mnemonics for trochee and dactyl. i forget what term he used for an anapest.)