SOURCE: Kahn, Roger. Review of The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, by W. P. Kinsella. Los Angeles Times Book Review (6 July 1986): 1, 7.

In the following review, Kahn examines the plot structure and prose of The Iowa Baseball Confederacy.

The centerpiece in W. P. Kinsella's intriguing and sometimes perplexing new novel [The Iowa Baseball Confederacy] is a baseball game between the world champion Chicago Cubs and a band of amateur all-stars that begins either on July 4, 1908, or in a crack in time. The game lasts 2,614 innings and was scheduled as the start of an exhibition double-header. The 2,614-inning figure is correct. The second game of the double-header was canceled.

The cast numbers real characters from the old Cubs, including their so-called peerless leader, Frank Chance. President Theodore Roosevelt makes a cameo appearance and strikes out, waving a big stick. Leonardo da Vinci descends on the field, near the hamlet of Big Inning...