baseball

nationality

Canadian

occupation / innovator as

Scrabble player

is a religious experience. A ballpark at night is more like a church than a church.

A ballpark at night is more like a church than a church

is unique for its open-endedness in contrast with other sports which are twice enclosed: First by time limits and then by rigid playing boundaries. It knows no time limits and the foul lines diverge forever, taking in all of the universe.

In explaining why baseball makes such a useful tool in his writing, W.P. Kinsella says that the game is important to his fictional stories because of 'its open-endedness. The other sports are twice enclosed: first by time limits and then by rigid playing boundaries' (Shannon, Baseball 7). Though every other major sport in the United States is confined by spatial limitationsout of bounds, lines of scrimmage, foul lines, half-courtbaseball remains the only game that is spatially open: 'Baseball . . . knows no time limits, and on the true baseball field, the foul lines diverge forever, eventually, because of their sheer numbers, taking in most, or all of the universe' (7).

W.P. KinsellaThinkers

W.P. Kinsella