A book review ...

The Art of Fielding

Chad Harbach
Little, Brown and Company
First edition, 2011
512 pages

The Art of Fielding is Chad Harbach’s first novel and it is generating a lot of buzz following a strong review in the New York Times, not to mention great word of mouth. The notes on the dustcover summarize the plot perfectly:

At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big-league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended.

Henry’s fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight, a longtime bachelor, has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly in love. Owen Dunne, Henry’s gay roommate and teammate, becomes caught up in a dangerous affair. Mike Schwartz, the team captain and Henry’s best friend, realizes he has guided Henry’s career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight, Guert’s daughter, returns to Westish after escaping an ill-fated marriage, determined to start a new life.

Yes, The Art of Fielding is about baseball. But it is so much more. It is really about relationships: the ups and downs, twists and turns that all of these deeply flawed characters experience. At the heart of the story are Henry and Mike. And then Guert and Pella, Guert and Owen, Pella and Mike, Pella and Henry, and on it goes.

The Westish Harpooners are in the midst of an historic season, bound for a conference title and a berth in the national tournament. Westish has never won a conference title, and seldom experienced a winning season. At the heart of this turnaround are Henry and Mike. Henry is driven, since his days in Little League, to be the perfect shortstop. This quest has become his life and he is on the verge of breaking a college record for consecutive errorless games. Mike has pushed Henry toward perfection, not only honing his fielding skills, but packing on pounds of lean muscle and turning Henry into a fearsome clutch hitter.

On the eve of his triumphant achievement, with major league scouts crowding the stands at every game, suddenly Henry contracts Steve Blass Disease. Steve Blass was a fine pitcher who led the Pittsburgh Pirates to a World Series title in 1971. At spring training in 1973, suddenly Blass could not throw a strike. Two years later, he retired. Other players have been infected over the years: Mackey Sasser, a catcher who could not hit the pitcher from sixty feet away; Steve Sax and Chuck Knoblauch, second basemen who could no longer make the throw to first; Rick Ankiel, a pitcher who, like Blass, could no longer throw a strike. Only Sax ever really recovered. Knoblauch and Ankiel had to move to the outfield where the throws are less precise.

Harbach provides an intense and detailed description of what Henry is going through, as in the following passage:

… Henry knew where the ball was headed before the swing was half finished, a sharp grounder three steps to his left, ideal for a double play. He was there waiting when the ball arrived. Ajay darted over to cover second. Henry, still low in his crouch, pivoted and whipped his arm sidelong across his body, just as he’d practiced so many thousands of times, but at the last moment he sensed the throw would be too hard for Ajay to handle, so he tried to decelerate slightly, but no, that was wrong too. But it was too late, the ball left his hand and began sliding rightward, out into the path of the charging runner, and Ajay, all five-foot-five of him, tried to stretch to make the catch, but the ball caught the tip of his glove and scooted into short right field …

If you are a former ballplayer, this is agonizing stuff to read, because chances are, you’ve been there and you’d rather not think about it. You find yourself pulling—even praying— for Henry to snap out of it, knowing full well from your own experience that it isn’t likely to happen.

All of Harbach’s characters are effected by Henry’s struggles, especially Mike, Pella, Guert, and Owen. Nobody comes out unscathed. Much like the movie version of Bernard Malamud’s “The Natural,” you have to suspend disbelief to accept Harbach’s resolution of the myriad issues. And, because I became invested in the characters, some aspects of the plot go in directions I didn't like.

That said, this is a terrific novel, one that is a must read, especially if you have ever played the game of baseball. You former players will know the Westish Harpooners, only by different names, and you’ll smile at all the familiar idiosyncrasies that Harbach depicts so accurately.

In the final chapter, you will also see a brilliant opening for a sequel. Hey, if John Updike could do it, why not Chad Harbach? In the meantime, we can all amuse ourselves by casting the characters for the movie version. How about Richard Gere for Guert Affenlight? Emma Stone for Pella? Ron Shelton to write the screenplay and direct? I could go on; we’ll compare notes later.
_____