Kurt Vonnegut and The Soul of Baseball

These things come in threes, don’t they? First, reading “2 B R 0 2 B” as part of The Big Book of Science Fiction. Second, stumbling on my old Vonnegut books as part of the great storage unit cleanup. Third, seeing write about Vonnegut as part of last week’s Sci-Friday. At a certain point, you need to stop ducking the omens.

Living in London, I’m a bit spoilt for authors. They’re everywhere. We have to shake them out of the carpets in the morning. Growing up in Kansas City, an author visit was a more unusual occasion. As a book-lovin’ lad, I was lucky to have an indulgent, book-lovin’ mom, who kept her eyes peeled for wandering novelists, and would patiently schlep me to events. Plus, we were served by a kickass local bookshop that earned Kansas City a stopover on national tours (thanks, Rainy Day).

Over the years, Kansas City hosted - and I accosted - Ray Bradbury, Art Spiegelman (best author event ever), Gene Wolfe, William S Burroughs (SO MANY STORIES) and, amazingly enough, Kurt Vonnegut.

Vonnegut came to Kansas City when I was in high school. In fact, I had just been accepted to the University of Chicago, his alma mater. This very exciting connection between us, a potential karass even. My hope of eternal brotherhood did not last for long.

Rather than doing a reading, Vonnegut shared - with a rapt audience - the thinking behind his proposed master’s thesis for Chicago. One that, as it turns out, the University rejected (taking with it my hopes of being Vonnegut’s BFF).

Vonnegut’s theory was that stories had shapes. You can graph stories over time, by the good or bad fortune suffered by the characters .Very charming. Very simple. Strangely effective. And you know I love a diagram.

The simplest graph, ‘Man in a Hole’, is the one that still sticks in my head. A man goes into a hole, a man comes out of the hole. Amongst other things, it is a hilariously pithy, apt, cruel and Vonnegutty way of describing what is - ultimately - 90% of media, from Nicolas Nickleby to Die Hard. (He did not, I’m sorry to say, cite Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle at the time.)

During Vonnegut’s talk he went through ‘Man in a Hole’ and ‘Boy Meets Girl’ to introduce the idea and then spoke, at length, about “Hamlet”. “Hamlet”, he argued, had the most interesting shape because it had no shape - it was, in fact, a line. At any given point, Hamlet’s fortunate is mixed: undermined, murky, debatable, whatever. It is compelling because it is emotionally multifarious. As Vonnegut writes in Slaughterhouse Five, emphasis mine:

Thinking about it, there’s a complexity to Hamlet’s arc (or lack thereof) that engages the reader on a moment by moment basis. With the more conventional arcs, the reader imbibes the story as a whole; one reflects upon and evaluates the entire journey. With “Hamlet”, it forces the reader into active, continuous consideration. What is happening right now? Is it good or bad? With the advantage of predestination (or a reread), it gets even more poignant. Knowing where this goes - or doesn’t - what does each moment mean in and of itself.

Caveat: I don’t particularly like “Hamlet”, but I like media that changes behaviour (broadly), and I really like the idea of a form of media that’s changing the behaviour of media consumption (specifically). We think a lot about series and seasons, of meta-arcs and campaigns. We consume in binges; are encouraged to ‘stick with it for the first six episodes’ or assured that ‘it gets better after book three’. A lot of media is lab-grown to be a commodity, with the intent to encourage quantitative consumption. The ten book series that is really one very long book, or the MCU TV show that’s just a slow movie. Anything on Kindle Unlimited. But there’s something, as Vonnegut implies, very special and and very rare about a story that encourages you to live in the moment.

Living in the moment is also the theme of The Soul of Baseball - Joe Posnanski’s narrative nonfiction of travelling in the company of Buck O’Neil.

Posnanski rides shotgun for the 94-year-old O’Neil, as the retired star tours from New York City to Nicodemus, Kansas. The book is ostensibly about baseball, but, as it argues, baseball itself is about everything. Set in the aftermath of the steroid scandal, it is a book about a loss of innocence. Drawing on the experiences of fans and players, it is about family (especially fathers). It is also very much about baseball’s uneasy relationship with race: focusing on O’Neil’s experience in the Negro Leagues, the importance of Jackie Robinson, and the aftermath of (often reluctant) integration.

I’m not going to lie: I bawled my eyes out at the end.

The Soul of Baseball makes for an unlikely paired read with Kurt Vonnegut, but - like “Hamlet” - this book is a flat line. O’Neil’s life is, seemingly quite tragic. He was a phenomenal baseball player at a time where his skills weren’t recognised and he was treated appallingly. He joined the major leagues too late to play, in a managerial position that was far less than his ability deserved. The book ultimately concludes with the crushing disappointment of the Hall of Fame choosing not to select him, and passing him over - a mistake they rectified, ashamedly, after his death.

But O’Neil adamantly refuses to engage in his ill-fortune. He talks about how much fun he had playing baseball: how the Negro Leagues was never a lesser league, how playing in it represented freedom and excitement and joy. He talks how much he enjoyed every aspect of the game, how proud he is to champion others into the Hall. (Side note: fuck the Hall.) His autobiography - I Was Right On Time - is an act of defiance to those that talk about what a shame it is that he was ‘too early’ or was brought along ‘too late’.

O’Neil is all about living in the moment. He refuses to dwell on the negative. He’s personally frustrated by people trying to make his life into a tragedy. This is echoed by his professional frustration with aspects of the modern sport - he talks about scouts ‘not watching for life… letting life pass them by’. He is constantly asking questions of fans, players, and his fellow travellers; goading them into remembering what they love about baseball; why it is magical to them, and how little of that is something measurable. He looks for what’s special, what’s underneath the surface. He’s a demon for hugs and for sweets; appreciative of music and with endless time for children. Buck O’Neil refuses to live without joy.

O’Neil’s of his mantras is ‘Son, in this life, you never walk by a red dress.’ Posnanski elaborates:

Although a deeply un-Hamlet-like sentiment, this same contemplation of the moment unites both Buck and our favourite Danish prince. But where Hamlet is famously indecisive, Buck eschews the need for a decision: the moment is enough.

The arc of The Soul of Baseball is Vonnegut’s flat line. O’Neil’s frequently admonishes us hat we should be enjoying every moment, but Posnanski ensures we can never escape the greater context. O’Neil is a wonderful storyteller and performer, but we pull out to see him speaking to empty rooms or distracted children. O’Neil tells us stories about the magic of playing in the Negro Leagues, but this is balanced by the stories of other players, who dwell more on the racism and the disappointment.

And, again, the book ends with Buck, a tireless advocate for the recognition of his fellow Negro League players, seeing a dozen of his peers elevated to the Hall of Fame - while he, himself, is passed over. (Again: fuck the Hall of Fame.) O’Neil and Posnanski are a powerful double-act, simultaneously grounding and elevating us.

It may feel like Vonnegut (the cynic and “Hamlet”-lover) and Buck O’Neil (afficianado of cookies and red dresses) have very little in common. But I see them residing in the same optimistic, philosophical territory - O’Neil is simply more overt about it. Living in the moment is not a pessimistic act, but a celebration of life. Vonnegut, like O’Neil, believed that good ought to triumph, that we should enjoy the little things, and that, famously, ‘we were put on earth to fart around’.

We are here to play games, tell stories, and enjoy what we can.

This was - well, before the baseball-related tangent - a contribution to Sci-Friday, whereupon lots of great substackers share SFnal things.