Box Socials

Box Socials
W. P. Kinsella

From the author of Shoeless Joe, the book that inspired the movie Field of Dreams.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.

Box Socials

BY W. P. KINSELLA

Copyright (#ue6d03b95-3cfb-506f-be8a-e58c36111f33)

The Friday Project An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

This ebook first published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

Copyright © W. P. Kinsella 1996

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

An early version of Chapter One was published as a chapbook by William Huffer Standard Editions of Vancouver under the title, Chapter One: from a Novel in Progress, 1989

The Epigraph is reprinted from The Silver DeSoto by permission of Council Oaks Books, copyright © 1987 by Patty Lou Floyd

W. P. Kinsella asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

FIRST EDITION

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007497515

Ebook Edition © July 2014 ISBN: 9780007497522

Version: 2014-07-31

For my daughter, Erin Irene.

“We cannot let go the need to bear witness.”

– Patty Lou Floyd

Contents

Title Page (#u3ec0bef2-46b3-5083-bc65-f26316d932c3)

Copyright

SECTION ONE: TRUCKBOX AL’S BIG BREAK

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

SECTION TWO: THE FULL SCHOLARSHIP ORPHANED GENIUS

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

SECTION THREE: THE LITTLE BOX SOCIAL

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

SECTION FOUR: BOB FELLER, HAL NEWHOUSER, AND JOE DIMAGGIO HIMSELF

Chapter Fifteen

Also by the W.P. Kinsella

About the Publisher

SECTION ONE TRUCKBOX AL’S BIG BREAK (#ue6d03b95-3cfb-506f-be8a-e58c36111f33)

Chapter One (#ue6d03b95-3cfb-506f-be8a-e58c36111f33)

This is the story of how Truckbox Al McClintock almost got a tryout with the genuine St. Louis Cardinals of the National Baseball League, but instead ended up batting against Bob Feller, of Cleveland Indian fame, in Renfrew Park, down on the river flats, in Edmonton, Alberta, summer of 1945 or ’46, no one can remember which, though the date in question has brought on more than one disagreement, which turned first to a shoving match, then to an altercation, and finally a fist fight, though not a brouhaha, the general consensus in the Six Towns area being that it takes more than two people to staff a brouhaha, the fist fight though, usually resulting in bent cartilage of someone’s proboscis, and blood spots on a Sunday shirt.