[ARETE] Review of Hamblin, When you can throw

[Duncan Jamieson]

All,
Please find attached and below Mark Noe's review of Robert Hamblin's new
baseball novel, *When you can throw from deep short*.
Thanks
Duncan

Hamblin, Robert.  *When You Can Throw from Deep Short*.  Independently
Published, 2021.  124pp.  $6.95.

            Robert Hamblin has given to the world nearly fifty books:
academic studies, poetry, memoir, and fiction.  His latest novel, *When You
Can Throw from Deep Short*, is a fine sport book for young adults, with a
little history, a little culture, and a lot of baseball.  Set in early
1960s Mississippi, it navigates the obvious racial unrest of the era.  The
book also addresses another common problem of the time, though one very
much under the radar for most Americans: that of post-traumatic stress
suffered by veterans of World War II.

Dwayne Scott’s high school baseball career is the vehicle for the
story.  Originally
a shortstop, his strong throws from that position eventually give him a
role on the mound.  In time, his hitting—contact and power—also gets the
attention of coaches and fellow players.  No story is complete, though,
with just the on-field activities.  Ultimately, Dwayne’s positive attitude
and mental maturity propel him past the troubles of his life (and of the
world he lives in) to make him a team and school leader.

            In telling this story, Hamblin relies on many of the standard
tropes of sport fiction.  He does it, very often, in poetic terms.  “There
are days in any sport, rare though they may be, when ability, attitude, and
circumstance conjoin to produce a sense of awe and absolute serenity.  At
such a time the athlete escapes the aching whirlpool of time and achieves,
if only briefly, a level of transcendence.  There are few occasions in
human experience when we can truly forget time: perhaps only when we make
love, lose ourselves in enjoyable work or mystical contemplation, or play,
like children, to our heart’s content.  Thus engaged, we immerse ourselves
totally and exclusively in the present moment: there is no past, no future,
only the existential now.  It is the closest we can come in our imperfect,
time-ridden existence to immortality.”  Pardon the lengthy quotation, but
this is what makes the book a pleasure for adult readers, too.

Only to be expected from a man who was, for many years, *Aethlon*’s poetry
editor.  *When You Can Throw from Deep Short* would make a fine present for
the younger reader on your gift list this holiday season.  But don’t pass
it up just because you might be a little too old to be classed as a
“younger reader.”  Hamblin tells a good story.
Remember to smell the roses as you recumber past

Duncan R. Jamieson, Ph. D.
Professor of History
Book Review Editor
*AETHLON: The Journal of Sport Literature*
Ashland University
Ashland, OH  44805
USA
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ku.edu/pipermail/sport_literature_association/attachments/20211206/d6bf246d/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Hamblin, When you can throw from deep short.docx
Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
Size: 13695 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.ku.edu/pipermail/sport_literature_association/attachments/20211206/d6bf246d/attachment-0001.docx>