No Fun on Sunday

In the morality-play atmosphere of this novel, baseball is not a great American pastime but a metaphor for evil. Sherman Engleking, the youngest of a German immigrant farm family in the Upper Midwest in the '20s, dreams of playing for the Chicago Cubs. Chasing his dream, Sherman also runs from the familial, religious and Old Country values his mother forces upon him. When a Cubs scout comes to town, Sherman decides to breach Sabbath rules and participate in a Sunday game, where he publicly humiliates his mother, who runs out on the field to try to save him from God's wrath. Despite this incident, Sherm is invited to spring training, but before he can join the team, he loses three fingers on one hand in a farm accident--punishment for defying God and his mother. Manfred ( Riders of Judgementsp ok.eed ) buries the joys of the game under the mountain of conservatism he unearths in establishing the period here. (May)