University of Virginia Library

Great-Dice-Thrower

Though the Great-Dice-Thrower
may be disinterested and disillusioned,
we must still play the
game: "I don't know if there's
really a record-keeper up there or
not, Paunch. But even if there
weren't, I think we'd have to play
the game as though there were."
Once the fallacy of history can be
destroyed and seen through, the
present becomes relevant and meaningful:
"...it's all irrelevant, it
doesn't even matter that he's going
to die, all that counts is that he is
here and here's the Man and here's
the boys and there's the crowd, the
sun, the noise." The imagination
and the life it produces, both real
and illusionary, is beautiful; the
earth is a pretty fine place to be if
you stop looking for signs and
simply live, "Damon holds the
baseball up ...it is hard and white
and alive in sun. He laughs. It's
beautiful, that ball."

***

The Universal Baseball Association,
Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop., Robert
Coover, Random House, 1968;
Signet Books (paperback), $0.75.