The 5th Inning

The author’s second memoir following Fathering Words: The Making of an African American Writer, this book finds poet and literary activist E. Ethelbert Miller returning to baseball, the game of his youth, in order to find the metaphor that will provide the measurement of his life. Almost 60, he ponders whether his life can now be entered into the official record books as a success or failure.

Written in short, journal-like entries, The 5th Inning is one man’s examination of personal relationships, depression, love, and loss. It’s a box score filled with remembrance—a story of the individual alone on the pitching mound or in the batter’s box. It’s a combination of baseball and the blues.