Ralph Branca and the Meaning of Life

Much has been written about Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca, Giants slugger Bobby Thomson, and the famous "Miracle at Coogan's Bluff" pennant playoff game in October 1951. This book considers Branca and that uniquely dramatic game as metaphors for what it means to be human. In this thought-provoking odyssey, the author unpeels the metaphorical layers of this baseball onion by discussing the profound psychological effects of winning and losing in America; the concepts of shame, hope, injustice, failure, and luck; and Branca as a conflicted and complex, flawed yet sympathetic Everyman. Branca's situation can be compared to similar "crimes and punishments" in world literature, from biblical icons Adam and Job to the protagonists of Sophocles, Hawthorne, Dostoevsky, Kafka, and Camus. This work of baseball history and analysis, the only endeavor of its kind, demonstrates the universality of America's game to the human condition.