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It’s not just baseball; it’s about a whole lot more

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Anyone who knows baseball also knows that baseball is more than just a game. It can serve as a vehicle for other parts of life, which was the topic of “Beyond Baseball: The Sport of Dreams” panel at the Festival of Books on Sunday

The panel, moderated by David Davis, included Edward Achorn, author of “Fifty-Nine in ‘84,” Jesse Katz, author of “The Opposite Field” and Mark Kurlansky, who wrote “The Eastern Stars.”

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All three books are about baseball, but each tells a much bigger story. “Baseball was a gimmick to get into other stuff I care about, like family, children and relationships,” said Katz, whose book recounts his experience of becoming the commissioner of his son’s Little League in Monterey Park, Calif., and all the life lessons he learned along the way.

For Kurlansky, whose book is about the town of San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic, he didn’t start out with the intention of writing a book about baseball. “It started out as a book about the Caribbean,” Kurlansky said. “It came to me: Why not write about a town that’s produced 79 Major League Baseball players?” Kurlansky showed that in this small Caribbean town, baseball was the chance for opportunity.

Achorn spoke of his book about life in 19th-century America, using baseball, specifically the pitcher Old Hoss Radbourn, as a way to personify the hard times before the Industrial Revolution. “Every season tells you so much about America,” Achorn said, in explaining why he chose Radbourn’s workman-like season of 59 wins in 1884 to personify the world then. “People had to be gritty during the 19th century,’ he said. ‘Baseball was a dangerous game, but it was better than the alternative of working in a mine or factory.”

Katz stated what all three authors attempted to get across in their books and the discussion: “A park is not just a park and the game is not just a game,” he said. “It is a mirror being held up.”

Joshua Sandoval is a television producer, most recently on “Latino 101.”

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