Literary Lineups: Pre-1900s Authors vs. Post-1900s Authors

Inspired by the folks over at Pitchers and Poets, I have assembled a pre-1900s team of authors and had them battle it out with a group of post-1900s. Who would win? First, the lineups:

The Pre-1900s Team:

C: Walt Whitman

He’s cranky, he’s crusty, he looks like a crusty old gold prospector, and he is absolutely perfect as the team’s catcher.

“I see great things in baseball. It’s our game - the American game. It will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us.”

1B: Anne Bronte

(drawn by Charlotte Bronte)

The weakest of the Bronte sisters, she completes the Bronte-to-Bronte-to-Bronte combo. She’s certainly a below-average first baseman, but like Mitch Moreland, the rest of the team more than compensates for her. Plus, she knows the value of on-base percentage.

“If you would have your son to walk honourably through the world, you must not attempt to clear the stones from his path, but teach him to walk firmly over them - not insist upon leading him by the hand, but let him learn to go alone.”

2B: Emily Bronte

(Portrait by Branwell Bronte)

Emily, the most romantic of the Bronte sisters, was a strong writer who may have lacked the range of her sister Charlotte. A history of knee injuries pushed her to the right side of the bag.

“Oh, I’m burning! I wish I were out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free… and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them!

SS: Charlotte Bronte

My favorite Bronte and author of the proto-feminist novel, Jane Eyre, Charlotte plays the most difficult defensive position on the field. The entire team relies on Charlotte’s strength at short.

“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts…”

3B: Herman Melville

A hearty, seafaring lad, Melville is particularly suited for the least represented position in the Hall of Fame. Happy to dive for hard liners without receiving the recognition he so greatly deserves is, sadly, akin to Melville’s literary work while he was still alive. Melville may lack the power of most third sackers, but he sure would have a penchant for squeezing line drives.

“Squeeze! Squeeze! Squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me, and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-labourers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules.”

LF: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Close friends with Thoreau and a lover nature, Emerson would greatly enjoy the time in left field. An extremely hard worker, Emerson may lack the tools of his peers, but makes up for it with his time in the gym. A team leader, nothing less than victory would appease Emerson.

“Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.”

CF: Henry David Thoreau

A lover of wide open spaces where he can be left alone, Thoreau is perfect in center where he won’t be bothered by the idle chatter of infielders. A classic highball hacker, Thoreau would probably best be suited for the bottom half of the order.

“In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.’

RF: Edgar Allen Poe

The strange and gothic Poe is a perfect fit for right field. Obsessing over cryptic clues in between lazy fly balls, Poe would use his military training to fire darts to second and third when opposing players tried to take an extra base.

“The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere —
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year.”

SP: Charles Dickens

Dickens, able to write endlessly upon single subjects, would be the team’s innings eater at the front of the rotation. Sure, Dickens may obsess over the bleak innings, requiring Whitman to come out and calm him down, but during a pennant race, Dickens would be a godsend to the bullpen.

“Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.”

CP: Mark Twain

Quirky, strange, and with a steadfast refusal to bend to society’s will, Twain is uniquely suited to bullpen work. Twirling his pre-Rollins mustache and looking marvelous in the home whites, Twain would be a frightening sight for any hitter in the bottom of the ninth.

Post 1900s

C: Cormac McCarthy

Gritty, dark, and unhappy, Cormac screams out to be the catcher who grumbles about his bad knees and peptic ulcer, but still shows up everyday to put on the tools of ignorance.

“You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday don’t count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else.”

1B: Don DeLillo

A late bloomer and a master of postmodern fiction, DeLillo still has plenty of power to handle first base despite critics wanting to move him to the bench.

“That’s the thing about baseball … You do what they did before you. That’s the connection you make. There’s a whole long line. A man takes his kid to a game and thirty years later this is what they talk about when the poor old mutt’s wasting away in the hospital.”

2B: John Updike

Blessed with terrific range and an ability to play a variety of positions, Updike could fill in anywhere on the field. Teamed with F. Scott Fitzgerald at short, Updike would temper Fitzgerald’s flashy glovework with his workman-like qualities.

“There was a beauty here bigger than the hurtling beauty of basketball, a beauty refined from country pastures, a game of solitariness, of waiting, waiting for the pitcher to complete his gaze toward first base and throw his lightning, a game whose very taste, of spit and dust and grass and sweat and leather and sun, was America.”

SS: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Blessed with privilege and perfect hair, Fitzgerald is the team’s flashy All-Star shortstop. Filled with bravado and a disdain for his sport since it comes so naturally, Fitzgerald is the talented ballplayer that the manager must often make excuses for.

“Baseball is a game played by idiots for morons.”

3B: Harper Lee

A rare talent, Lee would have no fear playing in for a bunt when a liner came screaming back at her. Sadly, despite winning the Rookie of the Year, she would never play baseball again.

“Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.”

LF: Ernest Hemingway

The team’s rabble rouser and the first one out of the dugout during brawls, Hemingway’s alcohol problem forced him to the outfield, necessitating a good backup for weekend games. His theory? “Practice drunk, play sober.”

“Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”

CF: John Steinbeck

No one patrols the vast expanse of center field with such effortless beauty as Steinbeck. Simple in his approach, he absolutely mashes hanging breaking balls.

“…sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.”

RF: Philip Roth

Despite leading the team in passion and wanting nothing more than to be its center fielder, Roth sadly is forced to an outfield corner where his particular talents fit better. During post game interviews, Roth will often confuse the reporters by blurring the line between whether he’s speaking or if it is one of his characters.

“Oh, to be a center fielder, a center fielder- and nothing more”

SP: David Foster Wallace

A Madduxian figure on the mound, David Foster Wallace combines an encyclopedic knowledge of how to set up batters, using heavily footnoted scouting reports, with an ability to carve up batters. He can easily rack up innings and has no fear of the game’s greatest sluggers.

“Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay.”

RP: Jonathan Ames

The team’s jokester (rivaling George Brett for greatest story involving bowel movements), Ames will often ape the pitching motion of other players when it suits him. With the talent to start, Ames’ penchant for troublemaking forces him to the bullpen.

“It’s like being a baseball scout in Oklahoma in the late 1940s and seeing this young kid running around center field, and you ask the guy next to you, ‘Who’s that?’ And the guy says, ‘I don’t know, some kid named Mickey Mantle.’”

Who Would Win: While the younger writers have the benefit of advanced medicine and training, the pre-1900s team has plenty of hardened, gritty players.

While the two teams played a close, hard-fought contest, and each starting pitcher ready to take the ball into extra innings, the lack of extra base power (for despite their strength, their swing mechanics would all be focused on contact rate) would ultimately be the pre-1900s teams undoing. With the score tied at 2 headed into the bottom of the ninth, Hemingway knocks a double down the left field line before Fitzgerald lines a single up the middle to end it.

Disagree? Let me know what your team would look like in the comments.

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