The Characters
J. Henry Waugh is as tormented a character as one could find in a Russian novel; he stands at the novel’s center: Action is seen either through his eyes or within his mind. The people he meets in the “real” world have a certain vitality of their own: his boss Zifferblatt, his friend Lou, Hettie (a B-girl who appears in several scenes). Yet overwhelmingly, the characters of interest are the baseball players. Because the game is constantly on Henry’s mind, he tends to see the real world through the filter of his game.
For example, he sees everything in terms of names. While Henry is riding on a bus passing a bus stop, the word “whistlestop” occurs to him, and he has invented a new character, Whistlestop Busby, a second baseman.
The two pivotal baseball players are Damon Rutherford, a young man of great reserve and confidence, and Jock Casey, a rookie like Damon, but one whom fate will cast as a villain rather than as a hero. Henry’s hatred for this dice-created phantom grows until, for the first time in the novel, he cheats: He arranges the dice to have Casey killed in retribution. As Henry’s grip on reality weakens, it is clear that Jock and Damon are becoming less and less individuals and more and more archetypal figures from myth: Damon, like Baldur in Norse mythology, a dying god, and Casey, the scheming Loki arranging his death.
Characters Discussed
J. Henry Waugh
J. Henry Waugh, a fifty-six-year-old accountant for the firm of Dunkelmann, Zauber & Zifferblatt (German for “Obscurantist, Magic & Clock-face”). He is the creator (“J. Henry Waugh” is a play on “Jehovah”) of a dice-and-paper game involving the Universal Baseball Association, Inc., a baseball league consisting of eight teams, with twenty-one players each. Play is controlled by the throws of three dice, with various combinations representing hits, errors, strikeouts, stolen bases, and other (fifty-six in all) standard activities and strategies of a baseball game. Waugh plays out full seasons of the league. He keeps complete records (earned-run averages, most valuable players, and so on) for each season. In what is now Year LVI of the UBA, he has some forty volumes of records dating from Year IX. Henry’s ballplayers, managers, owners, and chancellors become real people to him, and his creation takes over his life. Year CLVII represents either Henry’s complete departure from his ordinary existence or the UBA’s survival of its creator.
Lou Engel
Lou Engel, Henry’s coworker. He is a devoted but inept friend whose corpulence attests his love of good food. He spends every Sunday evening at the cinema. He is the only person with whom Henry tries to share the UBA. During the single occasion on which they play, Lou is much more interested in recounting a film he has just seen than in playing Henry’s intricate and highly detailed game. True to his name, which is a play on “Lucifer Angel,” he messes up Henry’s creation by spilling beer on the score sheets and record charts.
Hettie Irden
Hettie Irden, an aging B-girl. She is Henry’s earthy (German irden) hetaera. Her lovemaking with Henry is described in the vocabulary of baseball, for example, “pushing and pulling, they ran the bases, pounded into first, slid into second heels high, somersaulted over third, shot home standing up, then into the box once more, swing away, and run them all again.”
Horace Zifferblatt
Horace Zifferblatt, the director and sole surviving member of the firm of Dunkelmann, Zauber & Zifferblatt. As Henry’s employer, he is exacting and intolerant of laxity but not...
(This entire section contains 825 words.)
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without some patience and consideration. Well aware of Henry’s valuable competence, he puts up with Henry’s tardiness and absenteeism as long as he can; ultimately, however, as Henry’s preoccupation with the UBA causes him to neglect his work completely, Zifferblatt fires him.
Pete
Pete, a bartender, whom Henry calls Jake in his imposition of the UBA world on the actual world. Jake Bradley is a UBA second baseman who retires to barkeeping.
Mitch Porter
Mitch Porter, a suave and stylishly competent restaurant owner who serves Lou and Henry a gourmet meal of duck.
Benny Diskin
Benny Diskin, the son of a delicatessen owner. He makes regular deliveries to Henry.
Damon Rutherford
Damon Rutherford, a rookie UBA pitcher for the Pioneers team. He is cool, gracious, and superbly talented. After he pitches a perfect game against the Haymakers, his creator (Henry) assumes the Damon Rutherford identity in a night of lovemaking with Hettie. In a game against the Knickerbockers, Damon is fatally beaned by pitcher Jock Casey in accordance with Henry’s having thrown three consecutive triple ones with the dice.
Jock Casey
Jock Casey, a rookie UBA pitcher for the Knickerbockers. He is gaunt and emotionless. After fatally (and, to all appearances, deliberately) beaning Damon Rutherford, he is killed in a subsequent game by a line drive to the mound, as Henry manipulates the death by deliberately setting up a third consecutive dice throw of triple sixes.
Royce Ingram
Royce Ingram, a UBA catcher for the Pioneers. He hits the line drive that kills Jock Casey.
Brock Rutherford
Brock Rutherford, all-time great UBA pitcher and father of Damon and Brock II. He is fifty-six years old in Year LVI and is in the stands on Brock Rutherford Day when his son Damon is killed by a pitched ball.
Sycamore Flynn
Sycamore Flynn, the UBA manager of the Knickerbockers and ancestor of Galen Flynn.
Barney Bancroft
Barney Bancroft, the UBA manager of the Pioneers. He is murdered after he becomes the ninth chancellor of the UBA.
Raglan “Pappy” Rooney
Raglan “Pappy” Rooney, the UBA manager of the Haymakers, who lives to the age of 143.
Melbourne Trench
Melbourne Trench, the UBA manager of the seventh-place Excelsiors and ancestor of Paul Trench.
Hardy Ingram
Hardy Ingram, a descendant of Royce Ingram. In Year CLVII of the UBA, he plays the role of Damon Rutherford (equated with good) in the ritual Damonsday celebration.
Paul Trench
Paul Trench, a descendant of Melbourne Trench. In Year CLVII of the UBA, he takes the part of Royce Ingram in the Damonsday rite.
Galen Flynn
Galen Flynn, a descendant of Sycamore Flynn. In Year CLVII of the UBA, he appears to have been assigned the role of Jock Casey (equated with evil) in the Damonsday rite.
Characters
Within the pages of The Universal Baseball Association, a tapestry of characters emerges, each woven from the boundless threads of Henry’s "protean" imagination. As discussed earlier, Damon stands as the paragon, while Jock serves as the sacrificial lamb. Meanwhile, Hettie the prostitute, Zifferblatt the boss, and Lou Engle the friend exist outside of Henry's creative realm. Lou, a connoisseur of fine cuisine, represents a fascinating twist on Henry’s relentless pursuit of beauty and brilliance. His passion for exquisite food parallels Henry’s yearning for the game to inject thrills into a mundane existence. After Damon’s untimely demise, Henry extends an invitation to Lou to partake in the game, but this gesture flounders disastrously. Lou, lacking the gravity with which Henry regards the game, is more captivated by recounting a movie plot, echoing characters in The Public Burning (1977), and illustrating Coover’s fascination with how cinema influences our responses to life’s events. Henry’s solitary attempt to share his creation culminates in chaos when Lou accidentally douses the game board with pizza.
Characters Born from Imagination
The most captivating figures of The Universal Baseball Association exist solely within the imaginative confines of Henry’s mind. These are the game’s heroes and legends, like the folkloric Sandy Shaw and the mischievous Long Lew Lydell. Many managers, in their reactions to Damon’s demise in year LVI, embody the spectrum of Henry’s philosophical musings. Barney Bancroft, "the old philosopher," strives for calm acceptance of a seemingly arbitrary event, mirroring the central themes of The Origin of the Brunists (1966). Eventually, Barney ascends to the role of League historian and, ultimately, replaces the ominous Fenimore McCaffree—a nod to Orwell’s Big Brother in Nineteen Eighty-four (1949)—as League chancellor, only to meet a tragic end in year LVII. His assassination marks the conclusion of the Association's era of reason, though his work The UBA in the Balance endures as a testament to that chapter.
Among the managerial ranks is Pappy Rooney, who jestingly mocks Damon’s death, yet harbors a deep fear of his own end, serving as the embodiment of cynicism. On the other hand, Hellborn Melbourne Trench, bruised by Pappy’s caustic comments, turns to the solace of drink to fend off his terror of failure, representing a decent man battered by defeat and struggling to muster the resilience needed to face disappointment. After his dispirited team dismisses him post-LVI, Mel ventures into opening a bar. Lastly, Sycamore Flynn, the manager of Casey’s team, becomes the alter ego Henry chooses for himself. Flynn endures a harrowing night but resolves to adopt a pragmatic approach: to persevere and play on. In this, he mirrors his creator’s resolve.
