The Universal Baseball Association Paperback – Bargain Price, November 1, 2011

I initially came across the title in a Baseball forum and because I have read and enjoyed numerous books about our National Pastime and am also a baseball board game geek, I was really looking forward to reading this book. I read the sample on my Kindle and thoroughly enjoyed it and made the purchase for the full book. I enjoyed the main character's over-involvement with his baseball game and how his real life was intertwined. The author is extremely descriptive in describing the baseball characters and all the aspects of his game to the point that you can picture the images clearly. I soon realized this was more of a book on a dark obsession with a baseball game story line and adjusted my expectations. For me however, there were so many fictional baseball players in the book that I repeatedly had to turn back pages to keep up with them and in hindsight felt I should have written them down as I read. The author blends the main character's story with his fictional players' stories so often without warning, pause, or paragraph it caused me to pause to establish who I was reading about. As I progressed through the book I wanted to read more about the main character and how his life was deteriorating due to his obsession. Instead I continued to read about these fictional ballplayers he made up and their lives and stories which he was living out in his mind. If you're looking for a book about a dark obsession, a game like Strat-O-Matic baseball, fictional baseball characters, and descriptive writing; this book is for you. Just be aware that you may not get enough of some and too much of another.

I recently acquired a copy of "The Universal BaseballAssociation in order to re-read it. I initially read it many years back,shortly after it was originally published. I went through the re-read in a couple days, the book fascinated me as much as it had when I first read it. My particular fascination with this novel revolves around the fact that the protagonist, Henry Waugh is a player of table-top baseball games. This is the only novel I know of where that would be true. If you don't know about table-top baseball these are games which are simulations of baseball games, played with cards and dice. It is obviously a rather esoteric pursuit and if you don't know anything about it you might not be interested in the novel. I have played such games all my life as I suspect, Mr. Coover, the author has as well. The book certainly could be read on several levels, I suspect the author is trying to use Henry Waugh and his fictional baseball universe as an analogy for a much bigger story about God and man and the universe we live in. But that's not what interests me, it's all about the game that Henry plays and the difficulty he has with it for me. In closing, I'll just say again, an excellent book but maybe of limited interest if you're not into games the way I am.

This is one of those books written in such a way that you are forced to go back and reread a sentence or paragraph to fully understand what you have read. Having said that, I wish I could say I understood fully this story of a man (or is he God) who has created a world of baseball players in a game he also created. The characters become alive and weave in and out of the life of J Henry Waugh, Prop, of the UBA, at times more alive than he - certainly often more interesting than he. It is humorous and bawdy at times, frightening and haunting. There is a feeling of doom in the life of the middle-aged Prop. of the UBA as well as in the "players" of his eight team imaginery league. One player will die - killed by pitch that strikes his head. He is mourned, celebrated, eulogized, and beatified. And J Henry Waugh? He is a doomed lost soul trapped in his own world of imagination where the real becomes fantasy and fantasy becomes reality. I heard once that all good novels about baseball are about something much more than the game. That certainly is true of Robert Coover's excellent (albeit confusing) book. It is like a banquet - having been eaten it must then be digested. Read it and attempt to digest the novel's many layers of fiction and fictionalized fiction.

The final chapter, an epilogue that claims from Bull Durham all exclusive rights to the "church of baseball" metaphor, feels bizarrely out of place, as if tacked on by an author who found the manuscript and subsequently added a hyperbolic conclusion.The story itself is fascinating in its uniqueness and prescience. Published in the late 1960s, it envisions APBA/Strat-o-matic baseball, fantasy baseball, and Baseball Mogul/OOTP which would come later. This novel peers into the world of the obsessive Henry Waugh, the creator of a "real fantasy" baseball league, and the aftermath of a fateful roll of the dice. Parts of the novel hit a little too close to home for me and probably every other kid who supplemented Little League with fantasies of running a baseball team, or picked up a red pen and a spreadsheet when they realized they would not be a professional baseball player.

Well, sorta.... work of fiction about a guy who plays a baseball game reminiscent of Strat-o-matic, that he created. As someone who grew up playing Strat, and remembers inventing a similar game with fake players as a kid, the premise of the book was very appealing.

if you can get past the dated material and the really elaborated storyline, it can be really addictive. just not for everyone. i was fascinated when i read it in my late twenties. recently re-read it and it took a while to get into. of course, i'm 70 now (a retired english teacher for 40 yrs).

This is brilliantly written especially considering how long ago it was published, way before fantasy baseball/football became so popular, even to the point of obsession with some people. It is a fascinating read, it may lose you at times, which certainly fits with the theme. I didn't love it, but was very glad I read it and I think in hindsight, seeing what Coover was doing here, a re-read would be very satisfying.

Not a bad book.It was more a philosophical read (What's the Meaning of Life) than baseball.I don't regret buying it, but I won't read it again.