Samuel Beckett’s only published book of prose fiction “Company” contains a mysterious section called the “Book of Cards.” This enigmatic collection of 81 short texts written on index cards has long puzzled and intrigued Beckett scholars. While the meaning and purpose of the cards remains ambiguous, some have speculated they relate to Beckett’s interest in baseball. This theory provides an interesting lens for analyzing the cards and gaining new insight into Beckett’s work.
Beckett was an avid baseball fan who closely followed the New York Giants in the 1940s and 1950s. He attended games at the Polo Grounds and could discuss players, statistics, and games in great detail. This passion emerged during his time living in New York just prior to writing “Company” in the late 1970s. While the cards contain no direct baseball references, their structure of 81 short texts distributed across 9 sections of 9 cards each mirrors the structure of a baseball season with its 81 home games split into 9 innings per game.
The cards also reflect key elements of baseball through their focus on repetition, failure, and the search for meaning amid ambiguity. In baseball, each game brings the same structure yet a different, unpredictable outcome. The cards similarly present brief, repetitive phrases and observations that accumulate and shift subtly across the 81 texts. Like baseball, meaning is elusive yet emerges from the repetition, variation, and accumulation over time.
The cards also capture the essence of failure in baseball and life. Most baseball players fail far more often than they succeed, as hitting a ball is one of the hardest things to do in sports. Across the 81 cards, Beckett presents a litany of small failures, non-events, and ambiguities that never reach a resolution, much like the failure that is an inherent part of baseball. Meaning is fleeting and ambiguous rather than definitive. As in baseball, one must find significance in process rather than results.
Several individual cards also resonate specifically with baseball themes and imagery. Card 11 states “All gone. All gone,” evoking the final out of a game. Card 13 says “Not a sound. In the stands,” capturing the eerie silence and stillness after the game concludes. Card 24 notes “No one came to help. As is only right,” reflecting how players must struggle through at bats and innings alone on the field.
Card 30 states “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity,” paraphrasing a famous baseball saying about oppressive summer weather. Card 38 wonders “Is it always like this?” implying the repetitiveness of a full baseball season. Card 47 observes “The grass was parched,” reflecting the withered outfield during a heatwave or drought. Card 51 asks “Is there hope for another summer?” touching on the cyclical annual nature of the baseball season and seasons of life.
While these specific connections are open to interpretation, they demonstrate how Beckett may have been thinking of baseball as he composed the brief, elusive texts. The form and content of the cards beautifully mirror baseball’s focus on process, failure, and finding significance amid ambiguity. For Beckett fans fascinated by this mysterious work, considering it through the lens of America’s pastime offers a compelling new perspective.
Of course, Beckett likely intended the cards to remain enigmatic and resist definitive explanations. But their structure resembling a baseball season and subtle reflections of the game’s themes provide useful context. Whether Beckett directly intended baseball connections, the book of cards gains resonance when viewed through the lens of America’s national pastime that so enthralled the Irish novelist. While the meaning of Beckett’s cryptic cards may never be fully solved, thinking of them as a “Baseball Book of Cards” offers an intriguing new approach for appreciating this singular work from one of the 20th century’s greatest authors. The book of cards, like baseball, rewards repeated reading and interpretation.
