Analytical Essay: The Errors In The Art Of Fielding

Within The Art of Fielding, there are numerous errors being made by essentially all of the characters. Although, one of the leading errors comes From Henry Skrimshander, the Wetish College Harpooners’ starting shortstop. Henry strives to be the perfect shortstop, much like his idol Aparicio Rodriguez; however, Henry purposefully errors because he does not feel worthy enough of reaching perfection. Due to the fact that Henry is uncertain of what exactly caused his awful throw that led to a ball to be thrown into Owen Dunne’s face, and continuously reanalyzed the throw over and over again, Henry falls straight into Royce’s definition of error which eventually leads him to continuously err both in baseball and within his life.
Within “Error and
From Henry’s continual analysis of what exactly caused the baseball error that broke Owen’s zygomatic arch, Henry puts himself into more errors: missing even more shots and overthinking nearly every throw. Eventually, because of this over analysis of his shortstop position, Henry becomes such a terrible player that his team members do not even want him to play: “We talked it over at practice today, and we think that Henry should sit out tomorrow” (298). Once Henry quits the team, and “his mind finally quiets” (323), the Harpooners go on a multiple game winning streak and makes it to the national tournament, which reinforces Henry’s thought of not being ‘worthy’ enough to be on a college baseball team or beyond to the major and minor
What is the point of understanding how the Roycean definition of error affects how Henry acts? It explains why after Henry turns down playing for the St. Louis Cardinals (his dream team) he is able to finally again do a perfect throw: “His fingers found the seams. He sound his hips and whipped his arm, feeling nothing, less than nothing, nose sense of foreboding or anticipation, no liveliness, no weight, no itch or sentience in his fingertips, no fear, no hope” (512). By turning down being in the majors and going back to play for his college team, and accepting whatever position Mike Schwartz wants him to play as he is stopping the continuation of his error. Henry stopped interpreting the unknown of his life and baseball by stopping his thinking all together, he just does what he knows,