Malamud's Incorporation of Actual
Baseball is one of the oldest sports in the US. It dates back to Civil War times. Throughout baseball history, many events happen that later become very famous and known. The Natural by Bernard Malamud tells a story about a young striving baseball player, Roy Hobbs, that is trying to become a baseball hero. Malamud revealed after writing the novel that he had no interest in or knowledge of baseball. In preparation for his novel, he read about what was, in 1952, still unquestionably "the national pastime." Out of baseball ritual and lore, Malamud distilled the heroic component of the game as a measure of man, similar in nature to Homeric battles, chivalric tournaments, or the Arthurian quest for the Holy Grail. The shooting of Ed Waitkus in 1949 by an emotionally disturbed girl in her Chicago hotel room; Chuck Hostetler's fall between third and home base when he could have won the sixth game of the 1945 world series; and The 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal are some of the events incorporated
Many entertaining things have happened during baseball history. For example, a major league baseball player by the name of Chuck Hostetler fell in between third and home base during the 1945 World Series. If he had not have fallen, then he would have won the World Series. This odd episode also happens to Pop Fisher in the novel. Pop Fisher is the aged manager of the New York knights. Fisher also is running home but "...his legs got tangled under him and he fell flat on his stomach... by the time he was up the ball was in the catcher's glove and he ran up the baseline after Pop." Malamud's portrayal of Pop falling in the middle of the baseline is very similar to Chuck Hostetler humiliating ordeal. Malamud binds this piece of baseball history into the novel to give a sense of realness. The last historical tie-in with real-life baseball and the novel is a very famous line used throughout the US today. After the 1919 Black Sox scandal, a young boy on the street confronts "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and says, "Say it ain't so, Joe." Joe, being one of the greatest baseba
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 726
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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