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The Dixon Cornbelt League and Other Baseball Stories is a short story collection written by W. P. Kinsella. It was published in 1993.
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The Dixon Cornbelt League and Other Baseball Stories is a short story collection written by W. P. Kinsella. It was published in 1993.
These nine stories from Kinsella all have the same general themes, centering on baseball, human nature, and the mystical.
The title story is about an undrafted college player's attempt to go pro. He catches on with a minor league team in a small Iowa town, where the atmosphere is light and the citizens welcoming. However, something isn't right about the new team...
Other stories in the collection are more surreal. For example, in "Eggs," an old pitcher is kept in his in-laws' home by some mysterious force.
Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of nine players each, that take turns batting and fielding. The game is in play when a player on the fielding team, called the pitcher, throws a ball that a player on the batting team tries to hit with a bat. The objective of the offensive team is to hit the ball into the field of play, away from the other team's players, allowing its players to run the bases, having them advance counter-clockwise around four bases to score what are called "runs". The objective of the defensive team is to prevent batters from becoming runners, and to prevent runners' advance around the bases. A run is scored when a runner legally advances around the bases in order and touches home plate.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-related artifacts and exhibits, honoring those who have excelled in playing, managing, and serving the sport. The Hall's motto is "Preserving History, Honoring Excellence, Connecting Generations". Cooperstown is often used as shorthand for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, similar to "Canton" for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be used narrowly for the seven relatively successful leagues beginning in 1920 that are sometimes termed "Negro Major Leagues".
Field of Dreams is a 1989 American sports fantasy drama film written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson, based on W. P. Kinsella's 1982 novel Shoeless Joe. The film stars Kevin Costner as a farmer who builds a baseball field in his cornfield that attracts the ghosts of baseball legends, including Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Chicago Black Sox. Amy Madigan, James Earl Jones, and Burt Lancaster also star. It was theatrically released on May 5, 1989.
Joseph Jefferson Jackson, nicknamed "Shoeless Joe", was an American outfielder who played Major League Baseball (MLB) in the early 1900s. Although his .356 career batting average is the third highest in the history of Major League Baseball (MLB), he is often remembered for his association with the Black Sox Scandal, in which members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox participated in a conspiracy to fix the World Series. As a result, Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned Jackson from baseball after the 1920 season. During the World Series in question, Jackson had led both teams in several statistical categories and set a World Series record with 12 base hits. Jackson's role in the scandal, his banishment from the game, and his exclusion from the Baseball Hall of Fame have been fiercely debated.
William Patrick Kinsella was a Canadian novelist and short story writer, known for his novel Shoeless Joe (1982), which was adapted into the movie Field of Dreams in 1989. His work often concerned baseball, First Nations people, and Canadian culture.
James Thomas "Cool Papa" Bell was an American center fielder in Negro league baseball from 1922 to 1946. He is considered to have been one of the fastest men ever to play the game. Stories demonstrating Bell's speed are still widely circulated. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974. He ranked 66th on a list of the greatest baseball players published by The Sporting News in 1999.
The Black Sox Scandal was a Major League Baseball game-fixing scandal in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate led by Arnold Rothstein. As a response, the National Baseball Commission was dissolved and Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was appointed to be the first Commissioner of Baseball, and given absolute control over the sport to restore its integrity.
Carl Owen Hubbell, nicknamed "the Meal Ticket" and "King Carl", was an American Major League Baseball player. He was a pitcher for the New York Giants of the National League from 1928 to 1943, and remained on the team's payroll for the rest of his life, long after their move to San Francisco.
John Kinsella is an Australian poet, novelist, critic, essayist and editor. His writing is strongly influenced by landscape, and he espouses an 'international regionalism' in his approach to place. He has also frequently worked in collaboration with other writers, artists and musicians.
Archibald Wright "Moonlight" Graham was an American professional baseball player and medical doctor who appeared as a right fielder in a single major league game for the New York Giants on June 29, 1905. His story was popularized by Shoeless Joe, a novel by W. P. Kinsella, and the subsequent 1989 film Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner, and featuring Burt Lancaster and Frank Whaley, respectively, as older and younger incarnations of Graham.
Mark Anthony Kinsella is an Irish football manager and former player, currently a coach at Drogheda United after previously being both the manager and assistant manager. He played as a central midfielder for most of his career.
Shoeless Joe is a 1982 magic realist novel by Canadian author W. P. Kinsella which became better known due to its 1989 film adaptation, Field of Dreams.
John Bannerman McLean was a Canadian professional baseball catcher between 1901 until 1915. During his years in Major League Baseball, he played with five different teams. Beginning his career with the Boston Americans, his final professional game was played with the New York Giants on June 6, 1915.
Ricky Neal Horton is an American former Major League Baseball (MLB) left-handed pitcher who played for the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago White Sox, and Los Angeles Dodgers from 1984 to 1990, and who is currently a radio broadcaster for the St. Louis Cardinals.
Mose Hirsch Solomon, nicknamed the Rabbi of Swat was an American left-handed baseball player. In 1923, he hit 49 home runs in the minors, a new minor league record. He briefly played for the New York Giants in Major League Baseball in 1923.
The Iowa Baseball Confederacy is a 1986 novel written by Canadian author W.P. Kinsella. It is less well known than his novel Shoeless Joe, which came to prominence when it was made into the film Field of Dreams. Like in Shoeless Joe, baseball is at the heart of the novel, which uses magic realism to blend events and individuals past and present with the author's love of the game. However, it covers more themes than Shoeless Joe and it explores a greater number of plot lines.
The Asahi was a Japanese-Canadian baseball team of amateur and semi-professional players that was based in Vancouver from 1914 to 1941. The team won many league championships, particularly in the 1930s.
Edward William "Rube" Kinsella was a pitcher in Major League Baseball for the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Browns. He stood at 6' 1" and weighed 175 lbs.
Butterfly Winter was the seventh novel published by the late Canadian writer W.P. Kinsella. The story of Julio and Esteban Pimental, twins whose divine destiny for baseball begins with games of catch in the womb, the novel marks a return to form, combining his long-held passions of baseball and magical realism.