Bushville

<p> From <I>Bushville:</I> The game is a fine construct. Its trace through anyone's life can range from a youthful diversion to a full-blown career a tender small-fingered grasp to a deep muscular understanding. It provides a focus and a way to express the physical self in a physical world. I've played every moment of every game in my life as an amateur in the best sense of that word--doing something I love just for the love of it. The roots of that soulful effort run as deep as my earliest memories measuring them. And possibly yours likewise.</p><p> To play baseball is to become part of the game. One need not be a megabuck star to live baseball as a participant to figure into its geometry and its drama. The friendly exertions of amateur play lie at the heart of the sport comprising the wellspring of its professional levels.</p><p> Here viewed as a pastime through the eyes of a lifelong amateur player baseball unfolds as an experience of motion and time and senses--the work of muscle the textures of wood and leather the warmth of sun the scents of a grassy field. In the timeless continuity of the game can be glimpsed part of baseball's singular appeal: the lively tension between the momentary and the eternal what is over and what is never over. The interwoven essays making up <I>Bushville</I> are a poignant reflection upon the pursuit of what is essentially a ball but what is crucially human as well.</p>