PETER C. BJARKMAN

Bjarkman's often-reprinted coffetable pictorial will reappear in a fifth revised edition from World Publications (JG Press) in late summer of 2008. This will be the most recent of numerous reprintings for the popular gift book since its initial publication (1991) more that fifteen years ago. The various editions of this book include the following:

The Baseball Scrabook—The Men and Magic of America's National Pastime. Revised Fifth Edition. New York: JG Press (World Publications), 2008.

The Baseball Scrabook—The Men and Magic of America's National Pastime. Revised Fourth Edition. New York: JG Press (World Publications), 2004.

The Baseball Scrabook—The Men and Magic of America's National Pastime. Revised Third Edition. New York: Barnes & Noble Publishers, 2000.

The Baseball Scrabook—The Men and Magic of America's National Pastime. Revised Second Edition. New York: JG Press (World Publications), 1995 (also reprinted in 1996).

The Baseball Scrabook—The Men and Magic of America's National Pastime. First Edition. New York: Dorset Press (Barnes & Noble), 1991 (also reprinted in October 1992).

This rare book contains 320 pages of the most famous ballplayers ever to play the game. Mays, Bench, Mantle, Mathewson, Ruth, Cobb, Walter Johnson--along with old team portraits, the 1955 Dodgers, the Casey Stengel Yankees--they are all here. Numerous black and white and color photos offset a charming interwoven text which captures the magic and lore of America's national pastime. This beautiful oversized coffee table volume was originally released in 1991 by Barnes and Noble under its Dorset Press imprint and has since undergone numerous updates and new editions. Four colorful sections laced with hundreds of photos explore:
The Magic of Baseball
The Art of Baseball
The Baseball Family
Take Me Out to the Ballgame

William Brashler, The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993.
This Illini Books paperback 20th-anniversary reprint edition of Brashler's popular novel contains an original 17-page "introductory" essay by Pete Bjarkman. Bjarkman's "Introduction" reprises the history and culture of Negro league barnstorming teams of the 1920s and 1930s and also includes a useful bibliography of previous works on Negro league baseball history.

Severo Nieto, Early U.S. Blackball Teams in Cuba, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company Publishers, 2008.
Nieto's small volume contains box scores, rosters, and statistics (along with brief summaries) of North American ball clubs barnstorming on the Cuban winter league scene of the pre-revolutionary period (1900-1945. Bjarkman 8-page introductory essay ("Foreword") sets both the volume and Nieto's overall contributions to Cuban baseball history in proper context.

Baseball & the Game of Life: Stories for the Thinking Fan was listed by George Johnson of the New York Times (April 7, 1991) as a "noteworthy" new publication.

Of certain lasting interest to readers of baseball's multifarious creative literature will be Pete Bjarkman's pioneering edited collection of short stories—a marvelously diverse and literate collection which includes original works by Rober Coover, W.P. Kinsella and Jay Neugeborn. American writers from Walt Whitman to Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth have been intrigued by baseball. Something about that "boy's game played by grown men"—its combination of chivalry and furious competitiveness, its otherworldly timelessness and its permanent aura of nostalgia, even its oddly "narrative" structure—seems to inspire extraordinary works of fiction.

Witness the fifteen stories in Baseball & the Game of Life, which includes pieces by such designated hitters as Robert Coover, Jay Neugeboren, Luke Salisbury, and W.P. Kinsella (whose novel Shoeless Joe inspired the popular film Field of Dreams). Here are a slapstick version of "Casey at the Bat," seen seen from the dazed perspective of the opposing pitcher; the sly tale of a Brooklyn sandlot team that recruits a juvenile deliquent as its star player; a tour de force of magical realism that turns a battered batter into a figure of Christian martyrdom and redemption. In other words, here are stories that treat every aspect of the human condition within the parameters of the baseball diamond, and do so with humor, imagination, and a wicked verbal spin. Also featured is an introduction essay by Bjarkman on the scope of baseball fiction, plus a listing of critical additional readings in baseball fiction. Copies of this long-out-of-print classic can still be found on the websites of many internet book dealers. A colorful Japanese language edition was issued in 1994 by Shinjuku Shobo Limited (see below illustration).

Table of Contents

Introduction by Peter C. Bjarkman
McDuff on the Mound by Robert Coover
The Zodiacs by Jay Neugeboren
Lumpy Drobot, Designated Hitter by W.P. Kinsella
Pinstripe by Lawrence Watson
The Day God Invented Baseball by Leslie W. Hedley
A Rookie Southpay, With Talent by Tom Tolnay
The Glory of Their Haze by Irwin Chusid
Exploding Curve by Merritt Clifton
There Ain't Enough Mustard by Jay Feldman
The Professor & the Chicago Cubs by William Stafford
Frankie's Home Run by James Kissane
Jack Wolfe's Tryout by Like Salisbury
The Cinderella Kid by Henry H. Roth
His Big Chance by John Hildebidle
Browning's Lamps by David Nemec
Baseball's Dozen Best Adult Novels by Peter C. Bjarkman
Fifty Recommended Baseball Novels by Peter C. Bjarkman
Baseball Literature Anthologies by Peter C. Bjarkman
Critical Readings on Baseball Fiction by Peter C. Bjarkman