The Southern Review’s Issue with Baseball

“When The Southern Review resident scholar Andrew Ervin came to me last summer with the idea of doing a special feature on baseball for our spring 2010 issue,” starts Jeanne Leiby’s Editor’s Note, “I was skeptical. My initial concern was that our slush pile would be overrun by Sunday-afternoon-playing-catch-with-Dad sentimentality and easy metaphors that didn’t challenge, compel, or embrace the literary standards that represent The Southern Review‘s history and present. In short, I didn’t think there was much to say about baseball that hadn’t been said a thousand times.” Instead, Leiby writes of her amazement at the complexity of works received, the translations representing baseball’s far-reaching appeal: “the depth and breadth was astounding.” And once again proved the value of literary magazines in our contemporary culture to bring out new work: “the work not yet seen and the voices not yet heard.” Until now.