Here's the story of how Truckbox Al McClintock, a small-town greaser whose claim to fame was hitting a baseball clean across the Pembina River, almost got a tryout with the genuine St. Louis Cardinals -- but instead ended up batting against Bob Feller of Cleveland Indian Fame in Renfrew Park, Edmonton, Alberta.

The 2023 baseball World Series started yesterday with the Arizona Diamondbacks vs. the Texas Rangers. This is kind of an underdog series where both teams were not expected to make it this far. The team I usually root for, the Atlanta Braves, had the best record in baseball this year but were eliminated in the playoffs by the Philadelphia Phillies who then lost to the Diamondbacks. I often root for the underdog in the series if one of my favorites is not playing but this year both are underdog teams and so I really don't have a preference. Oh well, maybe next year.

Anyway, this time of year, I try to read something related to baseball. In years past I have read two of Kinsella's other novels, SHOELESS JOE and THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY. Both of these were great baseball stories (Shoeless Joe was made into the movie Field of Dreams) that I enjoyed very much. So this year I decided to read another one by Kinsella, BOX SOCIALS, which I thought would be another great tale of baseball mythology. I was a little disappointed, however, because baseball is very tangential to the main story of life in the small rural towns of Alberta, Canada in the 1940s. Kinsella actually grew up in this area about 60 miles west of Edmonton so he knew of the location and people which were all very colorful. The novel starts out talking about Truckbox Al McClintock who had managed to hit 5 home runs across the Pembina River and as a result got put on the Alberta All Stars in an exhibition game against some major leaguers including Bob Feller and Joe DiMaggio. The locals think Truckbox has a shot at making the major leagues. This is during the war and thus Major leaguers are brought into local parks including Edmonton mainly to keep the troops happy who are busy building the Alaska highway.

But then the novel strays from Truckbox's story to tell of the eccentric people populating the area called six towns where most are illiterate and considered hillbillies. The story includes tales of weddings and box socials, and includes various ethnic groups who populated this area including Ukrainians, Scandinavians, and native Indians. Box socials are where young men bid for lunches packed by the mothers of eligible young women and then eat with the young lady as a means to socialize and get acquainted.

A lot of this was quite amusing but where is the baseball story? Eventually at the end of the novel we get back to Truckbox and what happened when he faced Bob Feller. Well, it was somewhat anticlimactic. I would mildly recommend this for its humor and its look at rural Alberta during the 40s but it really wasn't what I would consider a baseball novel.

RABCK going to djf1968 in San Ramon, CA. Enjoy!

It's arrived safely... thank you for sharing!