Description
The game has changed since Walt Whitman wrote of “base-ball,” but its essentials remain the
stuff of poetry. In Any Base, James Scruton gives us Gold Glovers and utility men, balks and
curves and catches on the warning track. From winter ball to trade deadline, big league stats to
sandlot ghost runners, the poems here snag baseball’s richness and beauty. There’s insight,
humor, and heartbreak on every page of this perfect game of a collection.
Praise for Any Base
“A long-established adage reminds us that baseball can serve as an effective metaphor for the
larger world beyond the sandlot or stadium. No poet understands this better than the always
inventive James Scruton, as his latest chapbook, Any Base, amply demonstrates. In these
excellent poems, Scruton evokes the game’s nuances and unique texture while probing deeper
concerns. He’s obviously spent some time with a well-oiled mitt on his hand and well-considered
ideas on his mind. But Any Base is not only an impressive linking of quotidian subject matter and
deeper observations. Like all of Scruton’s work, it sparkles in its precision, polish, and richness
of poetic expression. A grand slam!”
—George J. Searles, author of Escape from Jersey City (Clare Songbirds Publishing) and
editor of Glimpse Poetry Magazine
