History 490/English 525
Tygiel/Solomon   
Spring, 2007

QUESTIONS FOR THIRD PAPER (HISTORY TOPICS)

Choose one of the following questions and write a 4-6 page (1000-1700 word) paper in answer to it. You may answer either a question drawn from the history list, or one drawn from the literature list regardless of which section you are enrolled in. All papers must be word-processed, double-spaced, WITH A LARGE12 POINT FONT and written in the best possible English that you can muster. Papers should include pagination and a word count. Follow the guidelines provided in the handout, "Writing Papers." Your answers should be drawn from the readings, lectures, and online course materials. MAKE SURE THAT YOU USE ALL OF THE READINGS PERTINENT TO THE QUESTION, MAKING SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO THE AUTHORS.   DO NOT USE OUTSIDE READINGS.  REMEMBER, THESE PAPERS TEST WHETHER OR NOT YOU HAVE BEEN DOING THE COURSE READINGS.  PAPERS ARE DUE WEDNESDAY, MAY 23.

1.   Baseball's post-World War II era is often described as a "Golden Age."  This description, however, masks the broader challenges facing the game in the 1950s and 1960s.  Discuss how baseball confronted the issues of television, relocation, expansion, and race during these decades and how the game changed both on and off the field.

2.  To date Marvin Miller has not been enshrined into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Make the case for OR against inducting Miller into the Hall.

3.  Many people feel that baseball during the past 25 years has suffered a sharp decline, while others see this as a true golden age especially for the fans.  Which side of this debate do you favor?  (Be sure to answer this question with reference to the course readings and online materials, not just your own personal opinion.)

4.  You may make up your own question and write about it.   However, your essay must relate in some way to the historical and/or literary themes raised in this course and it must be approved by one of the course instructors.

 

ENGLISH TOPICS

Use as a source or reference aspects of the novels read for this course.  I recommend treating two works, but you know best how to accomplish a brilliant short essay: clear, concrete, concise, elegantly written and compulsively proofread and corrected. You may, of course, agree or disagree with any of the statements.

1) Apply any of the appropriate questions from the Paper #1 list to Greenberg.

2)  "The novel form seems to demand the addition of a mythic or magic or historic or fantasy dimension to baseball." Discuss.

3) "Although baseball consists of winning or losing, baseball fiction seems to concentrate on loss." Discuss.

4) If Barzun is correct in asserting that to understand America, one must know baseball, can we say the same for baseball as social history?

5)  "Most characterizations in baseball novels are simplified and stereotyped rather than profound and unusual."  Discuss.

6) "Statistics and records are crucial both to baseball as game and as novel."  Discuss.

7) "Baseball novels tend to parody the game rather than to describe it."  Discuss, but be careful.

8) "Baseball novels show a creative tension between characterizations of individual players and descriptions of games/seasons." Discuss.

9)  You may make up your own question and write about it.   However, your essay must relate in some way to the historical and/or literary themes raised in this course and it must be approved by one of the course instructors.

PAPERS ARE DUE MAY 23.  You may give the papers to either instructor at the last class or at SBC Park on May 23 or you may place them in Professor Tygiel's mailbox in Science 276.  Be sure that you keep a copy of the paper.  If you wish to have the paper returned to you along with your final grade, please include a self-addressed stamped envelope. If you only wish to be informed of your final grade, include a self-addressed stamped postcard.