37 pages • 1 hour read
W.P. KinsellaShoeless Joe
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1982A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 2: “They Tore Down the Polo Grounds in 1964”Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2 Summary
Ray finishes building the entire field in three baseball seasons. The eight Black Sox baseball players appear one by one, clearer images of themselves except for the right fielder and the catcher, who are still shadowy. Ray’s daughter, Karin, also has the ability to see the baseball games being played on the field. She and Ray watch every game, munching hot dogs and sharing sodas, while Ray realizes that translating these games into reality would be like “trying to stuff a cloud in a suitcase” (29).
Next, Ray hears another mysterious message, "Ease his pain" (27). Ray tells his wife that this message is about the reclusive writer J.D.Salinger. Based on an interview that Ray read in a literary magazine years ago, Ray believes that Salinger is a devout baseball fan who has not seen a live baseball game for the past twenty-five years. He decides to pay a visit to Salinger, who lives in New Hampshire, and take him to a baseball game at Fenway Park, in Boston. Ray believes that even if he doesn’t know Salinger, Salinger knows him. In one of his stories, “A Young Girl in 1941 With No Waist at All”, Salinger created a character named 
