EXCERPT
“Ernie was a quick study in sociology and human nature. After I finished reading, he gazed kindly at me and said he thought he understood what my wife’s family must have been through as it made its way in a Brahmin world. He looked away, perhaps wondering if that’s what his own life would have been like had he made it to the majors alongside Jackie Robinson.
Through the darkness I could see his eye shift from empathy to impishness. ‘So why she call you a rat? You know … Ratan.’ When I reminded him that was my name, he laughed and said that given how I kept digging away for morsels of his story, a rodent-sounding name was befitting. The joke faded, and Ernie slid his bag of letters between the two of us before giving me a tight hug. He pushed the paper bag into my unsuspecting hands. ‘I don’t know anyone else who I can share these with.’
The northbound train came, and Ernie gently nudged me into the passenger coach as the doors swung open. I was feeling alone and connected at the same time. Together alone. Alone together. Looking at my reflection in the glass window, I chased an epiphany from the concert: Ernie was the sitar, struck hard on its neck for the privilege and pleasure of others; my wife was the tabla, a distant drum whose echoes insisted that Ernie’s sitar be heard; and I was the droning tanpura, a steadfast witness to the ragas playing out in front of me.”
PRAISE
"Adroitly balanced between autofiction and history, Double Play is a sensitive and suspenseful depiction of the growing friendship between two very different men of color—an Indian-immigrant professor and an African American peanut-seller at Wrigley Field—as they investigate the wrongful murder conviction that destroyed the latter's promising baseball career. The novel depicts powerfully the unexpected similarities between the prejudice each man has experienced—in different countries and under very different circumstances. Carefully researched and filled with perceptive statements."
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
McDavid Professor of Creative Writing
University of Houston
Author of Independence, The Last Queen, Mistress of Spices, and more
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“At the heart of Oza’s kaleidoscopic debut, Double Play, lies the unrelenting struggle of an innocent man to protect his integrity against the sweeping tides of racism, history, and political adversity. Double Play paints a vivid tableau of both a man and a city, weaving together the threads of a fateful 1953 murder in Chicago, a wrongful imprisonment, an unlikely friendship, and a promising baseball career that never was. In Oza’s ambition to blend memoir, fiction, historical account, and cultural analysis, Double Play hits it out of the park: a timeless and searching exploration of truth, injustice, and ultimately, redemption.”
John W. Evans
The Phyllis Draper Lecturer in Non-Fiction & Lecturer of DCI Memoir
Stanford University
Author of The Fight Journal, Should I Still Wish, Young Widower, and more
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“In Rajesh C. Oza's astonishing work, Double Play, history and memory collide and collude in the heartbreaking yet hopeful story of a friendship between an Indian-American immigrant professor and an African-American peanut vendor convicted of a crime he has not committed. Meticulously researched, utterly compelling, and radiating a rare empathy, Oza's exploration of quintessentially American themes—baseball, racial injustice, violence, and the promise of success—deftly illuminates the resonances between the lived reality of marginalized Indian caste and indigenous groups and African-Americans.”
Rohit Chopra
Professor, Department of Communication
Santa Clara University
Author of The Gita for a Global World, The Virtual Hindu Nation, and Technology and Nationalism in India, and more
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“I admire how Rajesh C. Oza shines a light on baseball, academia, the justice system, and racial dynamics in Double Play. This book entertainingly and empathetically applies lessons from the world of sports to the world at large. It's an important read that illustrates the power of building cross-cultural bonds of trust and friendship.”
Dan Grunfeld
Former professional basketball player
Academic All-American at Stanford
Author of By the Grace of the Game
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“In 1980s Chicago, an Indian-American professor of sports journalism hunts for the truth behind the 30-year-old wrongful murder conviction of a Black baseball player who would have otherwise made it to the Major Leagues alongside Jackie Robinson. A gripping mystery and a poignant meditation on race, caste, immigration, and friendship, Double Play brims with empathy and brings history marvelously to life.”
Ron Nyren
Writing Instructor, Stanford University
Author of The Book of Lost Light, Deepening Fiction, and more
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“Double Play is a picaresque, a mystery story, a chronicle of one man's contemporary experience as an Indian immigrant in the Chicago of the early eighties, and another man's experience as an aspiring Black baseball player in the Chicago of the fifties whose career was derailed by an unjust murder conviction. Rajesh C. Oza weaves these two stories—one, an aspirational tale in the post-colonial diaspora, another, a dream cruelly deferred—with sharp wit and political insight, through the fabric of Chicago's obsession with baseball, a mirror of the city's complex racial dynamics, into a multi-generational tale of loss and redemption.”
Thomas H. McNeely
Senior Affiliated Faculty, Emerson College
Writing Instructor, Stanford University
Author of Pictures of the Shark, Ghost Horse, and more
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“I enjoyed immersing myself in various worlds of this [novel]—baseball, India, the judicial system, journalism, Chicago. There’s a lot for a reader to sink his teeth into here. There’s something here for fans of historical fiction, for fans of love stories, for fans of multicultural literature, for social justice warriors, even for fans/natives of Chicagoland.”
TJ Beitelman
Chair, Creative Writing Department, Alabama School of Fine Arts
Author of John the Revelator, This Is the Story of His Life, and more
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“Race, identity, history, justice—how Oza blends these themes with baseball is astonishing. Following a scorching odyssey of a Chicago summer, you will be pulled into the story of the Black phenom wrongfully accused of murder, and amazed how so much of the human condition is wrapped up in the game of balls and strikes.”
James Finn Garner
American Writer and Satirist
Custodian of “Bardball”
Author of Rex Koko, Private Clown (A Series) Tea Party Fairytales, Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, and more
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“During another losing game for the Cubbies, fanatics grow restless and lash out at Indian-American professor and sports journalist Ratan. A more compassionate fan comes to the Professor’s aid, and when the mob turns its threats towards Ernie, a middle-aged Black peanut vendor, this fan reveals the vendor’s story of a dream deferred. Decades earlier Ernie been a Negro Leagues standout, set to ascend to the Major Leagues as a contemporary of Jackie Robinson. This encounter launches the Professor’s suspenseful investigative journey, an opportunity for the wronged baseball player to clear his record, a growing friendship between two unforgettable characters, and an informed scrutiny of the American justice system, with all its disappointments and possibilities.”
Angela Pneuman
Executive Director, Napa Valley Writers’ Conference
Writing Instructor, Stanford University and Sarah Lawrence College
Author of Lay It on My Heart, Home Remedies, and more
Q & A
Jim Garner & Raj Oza
Northwestern University
“Double Play on the Red Line”
Double Play on the Red Line is a fascinating debut novel by frequent Bardball contributor Dr. Rajesh C. Oza. In this alternative history, filled with the smell of hot dogs and the screech of El trains, the Cubs’ first black rookie is arrested the night before his big league debut and spends years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. “Ernie’s” story is explored by a young Indian journalism professor and avid Cubs fan in the 1980s. Timeless in its exploration of social justice, Double Play on the Red Line is both a Chicagoan’s love letter to baseball and an immigrant’s unflinching portrait of America’s contradictions.
Jim Garner: Can you give us a quick summary of Double Play on the Red Line?
Raj Oza: Here’s the quick version (that could perhaps be a Bardball poem):
An American pastime.
A wrongful conviction.
An unlikely friendship.
A life redeemed.
A love letter to Chicago.
Here’s a longer summary:
It’s a fictional story of injustice, alliance, and hope between two American men of color—one Black, one Indian—bound by a brutal encounter in Wrigley Field’s iconic bleachers.
Ernie was poised to become one of the first Black players in the Major Leagues. But on the eve of his historic debut in 1953, his life is derailed by a wrongful conviction that steals 16 years from him. When he returns to Wrigley in 1969, it’s not as a player—but as a peanut vendor.
Ratan, a young journalism professor and avid Cubs fan, witnesses a violent assault on Ernie during a game and is galvanized into action. What begins as a moment of horror becomes a journey up and down Chicago’s Red Line discovering multiple truths and venturing deeply into the legacy of racism, silence, and survival in America.
Jim: Your book examines social justice as it might play out against a backdrop of Chicago Cubs baseball. Did the theme come first, or the setting?
Raj: Setting. This was always meant to be a Chicago novel. In college, I read a lot of Saul Bellow and admired how he brought Chicago alive. Emulating Bellow, I’ve written a love letter to my American hometown; it’s as much a character as any of my novel’s humans.
Jim: What was most challenging?
Raj: Literary fiction must get its world-building right. In my late teens and early twenties, I spent a lot of time on Chicago’s elevated train system, exploring different parts of the city. While it was a joy to bring alive the stops and neighborhoods along my novel’s Red Line, I did a good amount of research to ensure that the writing was geographically and historically accurate. I do take some liberties such as calling it the Red Line in 1983 even though the CTA didn’t begin color coding the train system until 1993. So, what was challenging was blending the setting’s fact and fiction.
Jim: What was the most fun to write about?
Raj: Giving alternative lives to the first names of the 1969 Chicago Cubs lineup.
Jim: You use doppelgängers in your alternate history of those Cubbies. How did you decide on this literary device?
Raj: I believe in the idea that all of us could have a parallel existence. I loosely translate the German doppelgänger to the baseball term double play. Most immigrants—maybe all people—have double plays. We wonder, “What if?” What if my family hadn’t moved from India? Who would I have been? Maybe a Bollywood stunt man; perhaps a screenplay writer; maybe a goonda (gangster). Most of the characters in Double Play on the Red Line wonder what their lives might have been, if only… Coulda. Shoulda. Woulda.
Jim: Can you describe how the caste system of India weighs on the narrator’s mind and his actions in America?
Raj: The narrator, Ratan, needs to find a way to connect with the other protagonist, Ernie. Empathy means being able to stand in the same emotional space with another human. Thus, I have Ratan reflect on how casteism (which affects his wife) and racism (which impacts Ernie) are universal structural hierarchies of power—who has it and who doesn’t. I’ve long studied India’s caste system from an anthropological lens, but because I left India at the age of five, caste wasn’t my lived reality until much later in life. America’s racial inequality was, and continues to be, my experience of power up and power down … the red, white and blue lines.
Jim: You mention baseball as a portal for immigrant kids to enter American cultural life, which is a classic idea. Can you describe your experience with it? Did you notice a difference coming from Canada? Are there other ways your friends with a South Asian background assimilated?
Raj: My parents, siblings, and I moved to Canada from India in 1965; of course, hockey was king in Ontario. We moved to Chicago in 1969, the year of the Cubs’ late-season collapse to the Amazin’ Mets. Given that all the home games at Wrigley were played during the day, my summers were spent watching ballgames with my two brothers and sister after watching Bozo’s Circus on WGN. Clowns at noon; dreamed-of-baseball-crowns at 1:00 pm. Whether the Cubs were at home or on the road, we’d play stickball. Sunup to sundown, the four of us gathered with neighborhood kids. We’d draw a rectangle on a park or a school wall and use that as the strike zone. Pitching, fielding, (very light) hitting, and blowing bubbles with the gum packed with Topps baseball cards were good ways to become an American: just being a kid pretending to be a Major League All-Star before heading home and hitting the books. Sports, schooling and television made for a pretty powerful hat trick of assimilation.
Jim: What was your own experience playing baseball like?
Raj: All leather, not much wood, weak arm. I watched Don Kessinger play shortstop and modeled my nifty infield play after his golden glove. Although Ron Santo and Ryne Sandberg were also Gold Glovers, they could hit home runs. Since I didn’t have much power, I patterned my spray hitting to all fields after Rod Carew. In later years, I admired how Tony Gwynn, Wade Boggs and Ichiro Suzuki used the entire ballpark for their artistry with the bat. As for pitching, I’d stride like Fergie Jenkins (who happened to be our neighbor in Chatham, Ontario), but my fastball didn’t even have the speed of Wilbur Wood’s knuckleball.
Jim: When will we see more ballplayers of South Asian descent?
Raj: When crickets stop chirping. Given how popular and lucrative cricket is in England’s former colonies such as India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, it’s unlikely that those countries will be talent pipelines to the Major Leagues. In terms of homegrown American ballplayers whose ancestors migrated from the Indian Subcontinent, I absolutely believe we’ll see a South Asian baseball unicorn like basketball’s Jeremy Lin.
Jim: The real-life Innocence Project plays a major part in the book. Can you describe the Innocence Project? I’m surprised it has been lost to memory.
Raj: In 1999, under the leadership of Professor David Protess, Northwestern University began an investigative journalism course with the premise that the American justice system has many people who have been wrongfully convicted. Students were assigned a case and asked to assess innocence or guilt. While many incarcerated individuals were exonerated, the controversial investigation of a prominent double murder was flawed, resulting in the shuttering of the Innocence Project. In 2012, it evolved into the Medill Justice Project, which was subsequently rebranded as the Medill Investigative Lab.
Jim: Your background is in management consulting. Have you always written fiction while in that career?
Raj: Yup. Fiction and nonfiction. For decades I wrote early in the morning before the paying work began; sometimes at lunch; occasionally in the middle of the night if the muse kept me awake. And now with Bardball, I write drivel vaguely resembling poetry.