Jules Tygiel, 1949-2008

Bruce Weber in The New York Times writes an obituary for historian Jules Tygiel of San Francisco State University.

Eight Men Out

"At times, Donovan blames the fix for shattering his dreams. But his primary lament about life and fame seems to reflect the author's artistic trajectory as much as that of Donovan's athletic career. Having spent 13 years in the major leagues, Donovan observes, 'I had had all I dreamed of and wished for as a boy. And it was gone.... I had reached my height and that had been far below my dreams and expectations.' With his 1930s Studs Lonigan trilogy, Farrell, like Donovan, had won celebrity at an early age. By the 1950s, he was struggling to make a living as a writer, scarred by the reaction to his personal odyssey from the political left to the political right. You can hear Farrell's voice when Donovan finds himself 'thinking about a kid who was someone else rather than myself ... dreaming and imagining all that I was going to do and all that I would be.'"

In the Los Angeles Times, Jules Tygiel reviews James T. Farrell's newly resurrected Dreaming Baseball: A Novel.