Now that the Super Bowl hoopla is behind us (congrats to the Kansas City Chiefs, victors of Super Bowl LXIII), we can focus our attention on more important matters, like baseball.
Baseball and American literature have a long and storied history, and I’m proud to have contributed ever so slightly to the rich catalog of baseball-inspired literature with a short (500-word) story I wrote nearly 30 years ago that was published in a literary magazine called Fan: A Baseball Magazine. The little magazine was a labor of love for baseball aficionado Mike Schacht, an artist who specialized in depicting the heroes of the game he loved and who died in 2001.
I’d love to get this story republished in a more current baseball-themed literary magazine like The Twin Bill, but its editors are only interested in previously unpublished work. And there aren’t many other niche baseball litmags out there. So instead, I’m sharing it here. I hope you enjoy.
Baseball 1971
by Andrew Careaga
Originally published in Fan: A Baseball Magazine, No. 28 (Spring 1998)
He was years away from his three-thousandth hit and the time when the fans of Boston would again cheer him. But today Yaz looked as old and weary as my father. Today the boos rained down on him, weary old Atlas, as he adjusted his batter’s helmet, digging his cleats into the batter’s box, holding his bat aloft, the way only Yaz could do it, high and straight and outstretched, waving it in tight circles with his powerful wrists, like a club to fend off the jeers from above.
Continue reading “Baseball 1971 (flash fiction from the archives)”
Andrew Careaga 