Andrew Forbes - The Only Way Is the Steady Way: Essays on Baseball, Ichiro, and How We Watch the Game

Invisible Publishing produces fine Canadian literature for those who enjoy such things. As an independent, not-for-profit publisher, our work includes building communities that sustain and encourage engaging, literary, and current writing.

Invisible Publishing has been in operation for over a decade. We released our first fiction titles in the spring of 2007, and our catalogue has come to include works of graphic fiction and non-fiction, pop culture biographies, experimental poetry, and prose.

We are committed to publishing diverse voices and experiences. In acknowledging historical and systemic barriers, and the limits of our existing catalogue, we strongly encourage writers from LGBTQ2SIA+ communities, Indigenous writers, and writers of colour to submit their work.

Invisible Publishing is also home to the Bibliophonic series of music books and the Throwback series of CanLit reissues.

If youd like to know more, please get in touch:

You do this for long enough, and you begin to crave originality like a desert wanderer craves cool clear water. Andrew Forbess essays are cool and clear and may well slake the thirst of any thinking baseball fan. Rob Neyer, author of Power Ball: Anatomy of a Modern Baseball Game

The Only Way Is the Steady Way turns Andrew Forbes loose as a writer, and what emerges is a collage of emotion and clever observation of baseballs larger meaning. His writing is poetic, imbued with nostalgia, and another reminder that baseball is the most literary of sports. Brad Balukjian, author of The Wax Pack: On the Open Road In Search of Baseballs Afterlife

Andrew Forbes writes so well about everything, with such a keen eye for detail and the texture of life, that you can sometimes forget that the occasion for these essays is baseball. And yet, there he always is, like a nimble infielder, with a fresh insight or deft turn on the game. There is no other writer working now whose baseball writing I admire more. This companion to The Utility of Boredom is a true gift. Mark Kingwell, author of Fail Better: Why Baseball Matters

Andrew Forbess love of baseball is the most honest and difficult kind: clear-eyed, thoughtful, willing to see the flaws along with the beauty. This book is a beauty. Through the lens of Ichiro Suzukis magnificent career, Forbes examines our potential and our prejudices, helping us see the times that make the game and the game that makes the times. Scott OConnor, author of Zero ZoneandUntouchable

You dont have to love (or even like) baseball to love The Only Way Is the Steady Way. Forbes writing about baseball, something hes loved his entire life, transcends statistics, standings, highlight reels, and hype, and captures soulnot the soul of the game, but the soul of fandom. If you do love baseball, or have had any fond feelings about the game at some point in your life, you will find your feelings put into writing in the pages of this book. Baseball may not save the world, but this book will remind you that it does indeed matter. Brendan Leonard, author of The Art of Getting Lost

Andrew Forbes

Invisible Publishing

Halifax & Prince Edward County

Andrew Forbes, 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any method, without the prior written consent of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or, in the case of photocopying in Canada, a licence from Access Copyright.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: The only way is the steady way : essays on baseball, Ichiro, and how we watch the game / Andrew Forbes.

Names: Forbes, Andrew, 1976- author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200395467

Canadiana (ebook) 20200395645

ISBN 9781988784663 (softcover)

ISBN 9781988784748 (HTML)

Subjects: LCSH: Suzuki, Ichir, 1973- | LCSH: Baseball.

Classification: LCC GV867 .F66 2021 | DDC 796.357dc233

Edited by Andrew Faulkner

Cover design by Megan Fildes

Ebook design by Leigh Nash

Produced in Canada

Invisible Publishing | Halifax & Prince Edward County

www.invisiblepublishing.com

Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada.

For CC

Dont put him on a pedestal, just treat him with respect He seeks but his own approval, and earns all that he gets.

Ichiro Goes to the Moon, The Baseball Project

Go, go, go, go, Ichiro

Rounding third and heading for home

Dont you know

Beats the throw

Dave says on the radio,

Ichiro, youre unbelievable.

Ichiros Theme, Benjamin Gibbard

The majority of this book was written between early 2018 and late 2020. Given the requirements of the publication process the manuscript had to be fixed in place many months before its release date of April 2021. This is why you know things that I do not.

The book was perhaps three-quarters done when the novel coronavirus pandemic disrupted life on this planet, and so portions of the book were written when it was not clear whether or not there would be a baseball season in 2020. I recognize that a bat and ball game isnt of the highest importance in such times, but it certainly was of some concern as I tried to finish a baseball book. In the end baseball was played, albeit a shortened season with some strange rules (did they keep the strange rules?), with the stands full of cardboard cutouts. The playoffs were weird. The Dodgers won the World Series. I know that stuff, but as of this writing I still dont know what baseball might look like in 2021 and beyond.

The subjects of other referencessuch as who occupies the White Houseare in flux this very minute. I know Joe Biden was fairly and resoundingly elected, for example, but I dont know how they finally got 45 out of the building. I know there is promising news about vaccines, but I dont know if and how they might allow us to get back to some semblance of a normal life.

Of perhaps greater significance to the content herein, the structure of Minor League Baseball is, as I type, undergoing a massive overhaul. Many teams have yet to finalize their affiliations, and other small-town teams are in danger of disappearing altogether. The majority of these essays were written under a now-obsolete system, and their content reflects that old way of doing things.

These will all be footnotes in future histories. Baseballa game which daily reiterates its lessons of patience, persistence, and humilitywill roll on, somehow. Im certain of that. The game is something I have needed very much during the long months of lockdown and isolation. The strange mix of anxiety and boredom which has characterized the pandemic could, I found, be kept temporarily at bay by watching or listening to baseball, even when decades-old games were all that was available.

I cant say what kind of world will greet the release of this book. Happily, the larger subject of this volume is the purity of effort, and thats a subject without an expiration date, and impervious to the news cycle. Im hopeful that there are sunny days ahead when we can gather in person and watch baseball, and share our love of it together.

AF, Peterborough, November 2020