The Great American Baseball Novel

The story begins with a phone call. It is the off-season and Henry W. Wiggen, baseball player, is home. Happily married, he is getting prepared for fatherhood and worries about money. He has a sense of humor and answers “Triborough Bridge.” But when the operator tells him it is a collect call from Rochester, Minnesota, he continues, according to his narration, as recorded by Mr. Mark Harris, a fine American writer of the 1950s and 1960s and even beyond, “’I do not know a soul there,’ said I, ‘and I do not accept collect calls under any circumstances.’ I used to accept a lot of collect calls until I got wise to myself.”