A Whole Other Ball Game by Joli Sandoz

Imagine an all-star team of writers such as Adrienne Rich, Fannie Hurst, Marge Piercy, Betty Bao Lord, Maxine Kumin, Tess Gallagher, and Laurie Colwin. Now imagine them casting their considerable literary prowess into the sporting ring. These writers form the core of an impressive roster in this long-overdue anthology. Filled with passion and insight, these poems, stories, and excerpts play all fields and beautifully explore and explain the different layers of exuberance and anguish unique to the sporting experience of women. These are no simple tales of victory, but rather finely wrought musings on the genuine possibilities that sports and competition hold out to the human spirit.

---
In recent decades the number of American girls and women committed to competitive sports has grown dramatically. A Whole Other Ball Game shows that women's literature devoted to sports has followed suit. This wonderful collection of short stories, poems, and novel excerpts deals with all aspects of women's competitive sports, from the interpersonal dynamics on a basketball team, to the pain of losing or the thrill of winning before hometown fans, to the resistance girls and women can face when trying to find a place in what has traditionally been men's territory. With very different voices, Toni Cade Bambara's self-confident ten-year-old makes peace with her chief competitor after a close race, while Carol Anshaw's Olympic swimmer loses her chance of gold after a split second's inattention, and Pat Griffin gives a hilarious account of a very nonaggressive softball match between the Amazon Vision and I Am Womon. From the work of such wellknown writers as Adrienne Rich, Marge Piercy, and Ellen Gilchrist to that of undiscovered younger and historical authors, this engaging collection will appeal equally to athletes, sports enthusiasts, and general readers.