The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Proprietor

Robert Coogan's The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Proprietor is a vastly overrated book. I have no idea how it made it into Sport's Illustrated's top 100 sports books.

The story is about J. Henry Waugh, who creates a baseball game using dice and paper (Strat-o-Matic baseball, anyone?) and brings his players to life by giving them names and personalities. He can play a season in a couple of months and he keeps meticulous statistics and a detailed history of the Association. We join the story in year LVI (56) of the Association, which, not coincidentally is Waugh's age. Waugh is in a bit of a funk over the league because not much interesting has happened since they came out of a golden age (The Brock Rutherford Era, named after all hall of fame player; inasmuch as a name on a piece of paper can be a hall of famer). However, Waugh is getting rejuvenated because Brock Rutherford's son, Damon, has just joined the league and is shaping up to become a star.

However, everything falls apart when young Damon is killed by a pitch to the head. Waugh thinks about cheating to keep Damon alive, but decides he must play by his own rules otherwise it isn't worth doing. This leads to Waugh's near total mental collapse. His obsession with the game and his hope for keeping his obsession with the game alive appear to have died with Damon. He starts drinking heavily, missing work, and ultimately getting fired. And perhaps, though it isn't explicitly stated in the text, Waugh may have completely gone insane and simply lived as the god of the association, which would involve completely dissociating with the real world.

Coover tries to write a book about obsession and mythology. It's fairly weak tea.