Saturday Softball (33 years later)

    SATURDAY AFTERNOON SOFTBALL (2000), Dan Crosswell: SECTION ONE: THE ORIGINS OF OUR GAME S ix years ago (in 1994), an intrepid baseball evangelist set out to bring the Grand Ol' Game to the idolater Singaporeans, still held in thrall by their infatuation with the unregenerative game of soccer—a legacy of their great misfortune of having been ruled by the British. At least that is one of the creation myths. Others argue the origins of our softball association lay in the psychological need for North American expatriates to distance themselves from their voluntary exiles in Asia by playing the game of their youths. The Singaporeans are merely unwitting tools; their labor and enthusiasms manipulated to serve the selfish needs of disingenuous Westerners. Another school maintains the Saturday afternoon gatherings serve precisely the opposite function—as a vehicle to build cross-cultural awareness and social bonds. Naturally the cynics dismiss all these needlessly complex colonia...