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Never Mind the Umpire; Kill the Sound Effects Guy!

Alan Pell Crawford on trying to find a baseball game amidst the FUNN in Richmond. Things are better in Batavia, though my friend Tom Williams and I annually threaten to sponsor "Pastoral…
Bill Kauffman
May 11, 2011

Alan Pell Crawford on trying to find a baseball game amidst the FUNN in Richmond. Things are better in Batavia, though my friend Tom Williams and I annually threaten to sponsor “Pastoral Night,” during which amplified sound is banned, and the air is nicely filled with stadium chatter, the crack of the bat, the sound of ball meeting glove, and cursing of the umps from the beer deck. (I do love Jim Bouton’s description herein of “Bladder Buster Night”; I propose we work up a variation for the Front Porch conference this fall.)

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A stack of three Local Culture journals and the book 'Localism in the Mass Age'

Bill Kauffman

Bill Kauffman is the author of eleven books, among them Dispatches from the Muckdog Gazette (Henry Holt), Ain’t My America (Metropolitan), Look Homeward, America (ISI), and Poetry Night at the Ballpark (FPR Books). His next book, Upstaters, is due from SUNY Press in 2026. He is a columnist for The American Conservative and The Spectator World. Bill wrote the screenplay for the 2013 feature film Copperhead. He is a founding editor of Front Porch Republic and has served as a legislative assistant to Senator Pat Moynihan, editor for various magazines and publishers, and vice president of the Batavia Muckdogs, a professional baseball team that was euthanized by Major League Baseball. He lives with his wife Lucine in his native Genesee County, New York.

1 comment

  • David
    14 years ago

    The comments opposed to the article are hilarious. By the way h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s is how I spell disappointing.

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