The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon can be placed in the long tradition of baseball novels in American literature, many of which compare life to the game of baseball. The list begins in the early decades of the twentieth century with the works of Ring Lardner and continues with works such as Bang the Drum Slowly by Mark Harris, Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella, The Natural by Bernard Malamud, The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop, by Robert Coover, and The Great American Novel by Philip Roth; and King reminds readers of the tradition with a variety of strategies.

Not only is the title an allusion to a baseball player, but the book is organized by innings rather than chapters, and the last sentence, as Trisha drifts off to sleep, is "Game over."

Equally as important as the allusions to baseball is King's experimentation with...