ABSTRACT
In a recent television interview, essayist Richard Rodriguez claimed that what makes someone American is a belief in self-determination. In theory, America as an organized nation exists to facilitate the efforts of its people. The law exists to insure everyone equal opportunity and to allow people to achieve their personal destiny. It guarantees that people really can, if they desire, be left alone. Kinsella's tale is about dreams, and specifically about the kind that have slipped by us but that we get a second chance to grab. It's a premise that demands that we see the impossible. Baseball exists in two realms. One is the physical, recorded in statistics, newsreels, and old photographs. The other is the mythical, the legends passed down as folklore, the memories enhanced by nostalgic imagination, and the dramatic struggles of humans as played out by heroes in baseball novels.
