Guide to Baseball Short Stories: F

Back to the Short Story index page

Farrell, James T. "They Ain't the Men They Used to Be." In French Girls are Vicious and Other Stories. New York: Vanguard, 1955. 101-110. Repr. Lewis. An aging railway clerk tells of his trip to an old-timers' game.

Not exactly maudlin, but it lies in that general direction.

Farrow, Bryan. "Underneath." In Final Fenway Fiction. Fantasia on apocrypha: how Babe Ruth slid a piano into a lake, and how the piano resurfaced.

Fawcett, Brian. "Losers." In My Career with the Leafs (1983). Repr. Bowering. Memoir-type story of a desultory attachment to baseball.

Interesting premise, realized vaguely.

Fearnside, Jeff. "Going for Broke." Aethlon 20.2 (Spring 2003): 65-81. Nisei pitcher, in the late 1940s, throws a gem -- with pro scouts in attendance.

Fehler, Gene. "The Dome and the Hall of Famer." Spitball. Repr. Shannon. Futuristic sketch of an era when games are played in domes hermetically sealed against the anarchy of fans outside.

Feldman, Jay. "There Ain't Enough Mustard." Repr. Bjarkman. A retired fan causes a brawl at Yankee Stadium when he dumps mustard on a concession worker.

Ferber, Edna. "A Bush League Hero." In Buttered Side Down. New York: Stokes, 1912. 58-77. Repr. Lewis, Nauen, Strecker. The daughter of a prosperous solid citizen falls in love with a star minor-league pitcher, but becomes disillusioned when she sees his winter incarnation as a shop clerk.

Light and wisecracking story that sets itself against the typical sport story, opening "This is not a baseball story. The grandstand does not rise as one man and shout itself hoarse with joy" (58).

Ferrell, Katie. "American Pastimes." Slow Trains 7.1 (2007). After her brother comes out, a baseball-playing girl feels pressure from her dad to join a cheerleading squad; but the pressure builds to an explosion.

Fletcher, Matthew L.M. "Knuckle-curve." NINE 14.2 (2006): 177-187. Star high-school pitcher despises his racist teammates far more than he does his friendly opponents.

Flinn, Eugene C. "Never Mind 'Who's on First'; Who's in the Outfield." Spitball. Repr. Shannon. The novelist wife of a Cardinals fan decides to give Whitey Herzog some occult advice.

Flinn, Eugene C. "The Woman Who Outlipped Leo the Lip." Aethlon 17.1 (Fall 1999): 83-88. In 1951, the narrator, a newspaperman, arranges a phone conversation between Leo Durocher and the title character, a dying octogenarian Giants fan.

Fortier, Ron. "The Hot Dog Kid." In Final Fenway Fiction. Ouija board gives Red Sox rookie the message "FRANK"; but is a hot dog really a talisman?

Fowler, Karen Joy. "The Further Adventures of the Invisible Man." In Conjunctions 39: The New Wave Fabulists, 2002. Repr. Wilber. Feckless single mom is briefly convinced that youth baseball would be a good way to get a male influence into her son's life.

Narrated by the son, who detests baseball and doesn't come round in the course of the story. A nicely counter-generic short story.

Fox, Andrew. "My New Life." In Deirdre Madden, ed., All Over Ireland. London: Faber, 2015. 1-14. An Irish boy's world changes, in San Francisco; a key moment is his father's contention with Giant fans over a foul ball.

Fox, Jay. "Number 4,000." Aethlon 30.2 (Spring/Summer 2013): 145-154. Man learns the low-key highlight of the pro baseball career his father had never mentioned to him.

Fox, William Price. "Leroy Jeffcoat." In Southern Fried Plus Six. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1968. Repr. Holtzman, Lewis. A house painter in Columbia, South Carolina becomes the hero of the local amateur baseball team, somewhat in spite of himself.

Agreeable character study anecdote.

Frank, Stanley B. "Keystone Kids." Sport Story Magazine 49.2 (October 1935): 102-113. Manager tells how best-buddy rookie shortstop and second baseman fell out over the shortstop's gambling proclivities and then reconciled in time to drive toward the pennant.

The Black Sox are explicitly invoked here; long after 1919-20, the fear of a Fix continued to reverberate through pulp baseball fiction.

Frank, Stanley. "The Name of the Game." Saturday Evening Post, 1949. Repr. Holtzman. A young pitcher witnesses the unmasking of a locker-room thief; years later, the thief becomes his manager.

Tough-as-nails prose style enamels a pretty weak story.

Frank, Stanley B. "Not So Tough." Sport Story Magazine 37.2 (25 October 1932): 32-44. Rookie practices the belligerence recommended by an old pro, until a thinking-man teammate convinces him to use his head.

When rookie Johnny Hughes reaches the majors, his first clue that the big time isn't so tough is that "some of the fellows even wore ice-cream pants to dinner!" (34)

Fuller, Kevin J. "Bottled Tears." 108 1.3 (Summer 2007): 74-83. Widowed glassblower finds that he has won a contest that his departed wife entered him in: the prize, a single turn at bat for the 1936 Elmira Pioneers.

Nice character sketch here of Elmira player-manager Rabbit Maranville.

Fullerton, Hugh. "The Insignificant 'Dub'." (1918) Repr. Strecker. Inconspicuous infielder returns to minors, and then resurfaces as his own alter ego.

Clever, engaging yarn.

Funnell, Augustine. "Maxie Silas." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1987. Repr. Kinsella. Collector finds a baseball card of a player he knows didn't exist, and sets out to find that player.