1. Sports|ethics|literature 10.28.2016
The Universal Baseball Association, J. Henry Waugh, Prop. * Robert Coover *
Sports|ethics|literature

2. Finishing UBA What happens beginning Ch. 6 with Hettie?
How does Henry’s game go with Lou?

3. Finishing UBA What happens to Henry by the end of the novel?
What evidence exists for each possibility?
Henry is continuing to play the game as he was, alone, in his house.
Henry has come up with new rules for the game to keep it fresh.
Henry is the author of the UBA but no longer rolling the dice.
Henry has had some sort of dissociative personality break and no longer exists as Henry. The final chapter is in his head.
Henry is dead, a reference to the assassination of Barney Bancroft.
The game exists without Henry.

4. Political Parties/Final Chapter: whoa!
: Fenn McCaffree and the Legalist party
: evolution of political parties summarized
: Damonites and Caseyites
232: “The Parable of the Duel”
234: Damonites believe in “Plain simple-minded faith in the ultimate power of justice and truth.”
Is Henry supposed to be Barry Bancroft, who was assassinated?
252: Rise of the Caseyites and then Damonites
As a narrative, Henry is no longer part of the story

5. Allen Guttmann, From Ritual to Record (1978)
Guttmann, a sports historian who taught at Amherst College for more than 50 years, argued that there are seven characteristics of “modern sports” that differentiate it from “pre-modern” sports
Pre-modern sports are predominantly about community rituals, Greek Olympiads and South American and European festivals that emphasized tribalism and communal togetherness against ritualized Others and outsiders

6. The 7 Characteristics of Modern Sport
Secularism – sport divorced from religious festivals
Equality of Opportunity – sport as a way for lower and middle classes (and women, and non-whites) to attain social status
Specialization of Roles – no more town versus town soccer matches full of huddled masses
Rationalization – the formalization of rules structures, fields of play, etc.
Bureaucratic Organization – with formal rules comes governance, leadership, owners, etc.
Quantification – if you can’t chart it, it doesn’t count
Quest for Records – contemporary immortality

7. Final Questions
Do you buy Guttmann’s argument about the difference between pre-modern and modern forms of sports?
Is it still a good way to distinguish sports today?
Is UBA a pre-modern or modern version of sport?