Hays' _The Dixie Association_ is by far my favorite baseball novel. The Reds (pun intended) are an Arkansas farm league team owned by a one-armed socialist and populated by ex-cons, American Indians, rednecks, Cubans, and fallen cheerleaders. Their battles are played out both on the field and in the streets, as the Religious Right tries repeatedly to run them out of town. While many baseball books are concerned with the glory of America and the game that has come to be held as its symbol, _The Dixie Association_ shows us the underbelly of that image. The members of the Reds, despite their fistfights, yelling matches, and general cranky demeanor, have one thing in common: each has been kicked around by America and left for defeated. Hays will have us know that baseball is for all Americans, as the Reds find salvation and self respect through the great game. _The Dixie Association_ is one heck of a book, about baseball, yes, but mostly about the subversive spirit of any country's people and the doors that a sliding fastball can open. Kinsella's _Shoeless Joe_ could be considered the National Anthem of baseball novels. Fine. _The Dixie Association_ is the taunts and jeers from the drunks behind the left field foul line. Much praise to LSU press for re-issuing this fine novel.

Donald Hays is a excelent writer that shows the South how it really was. The Dixie Association is a novel about the Arkansas Reds a team made up of misfit players that range from young soon to be stars to ex-cons. Hays takes you through a rough season filled with law beaking, women bashing, and race hating issues. This book touches all the emotions and keeps you in suspense the whole time.

If you are a baseball fan, player, or lover of the game, "The Dixie Association" is excellent reading material for enjoyment or inspiration. Donald Hays, author of the novel, enlightens the reader with a tale portraying a misfit baseball team in combination with the social issues surrounding this particular time. He used a variety of writing techniques to capture the focus of the audience and essence of the novel. The book gave an excellent account of an athlete's emotions or feelings toward their sport. For example, when Hog said, "I could've hit till dark," he expressed a love that all athletes share with their game. Some athletes feel their sport is life. Bullet Bob possesses this same feeling recognized in a quote saying, "Baseball mattered to him. Life on the other hand, was just something he had to tolerate between games." It also shows the athlete's warrior-like attitudes--"Eversole never gave up without a fight." I did not like some of the rude comments referring to Christianity. Obviously the author had a bad experience with religion or was not very religious in the first place. I felt some of these comments were unnecessary. I also felt that certain points of the book dragged. Some unnecessary information could have been excluded to keep the reader's undivided attention. The battles the characters in this book faced were both on and off the field. Society turned against them and their only source for self-assurance was from the team and their belief in themselves. Most players seek the fame and glory; however, the majority of the Reds sought the love for the game. Their love for the game was their escape from society. Overall, Ifeel it is a very enjoyable and entertaining book. The author did an excellent job with beautiful description illustrating a vivid picture for each scene of the book. If you are a sport fan or athlete you definately must read this book.

This textbook represents an old-fashioned approach towards Industrial Economics, based on the structure-conduct-performance paradigm that dominated the field since the 50s until the 70s. The modelling revolution of game theory, auction theory, mechanism design and other tools has not been accounted for in this text. Moreover, the modelling itself is completely lacking from the presentation of theory. In fact, there is little theory here, just verbal stories and extensive case studies. Introductory textbooks do not necessarily have to be bursting with mathematics, yet some logical structure of thinking would be welcome. There exist better textbooks that develop student's intuition. A minor vice of the book is its verbosity. Too much form & too little essence.

As background, 99% of all economists will not understand the goals of this book. It tries to capture and piece together real-world support for the various musings of this odd academic discipline. Science?, art?, psychology?, abstract mathematics? ...Most of them do not know. Ask them.

This book is great because is begins to bring some data and rigor to the underlying ideas and allow some sorting based on degree of verification.

I loved this book. I think it was really quite the time for me to read it and draw the line to some political aspects now Russia faces. This book turns your thinking about the economics completly in another direction, and I would say it can create your face in the eyes of other professional economists.

Having read, and loved, the cult baseball novel, "The Dixie Association" I sought out everything written by Donald Hays - a regrettably meager list from someone who clearly has a vision of life on "the outlaw fringe" of southern America in the 60s and 70s.

The characters of The Hangman's Children are a disparate group, led by a sort of Arkansas cowboy- philosopher-conman, who makes his living by staging plays at small town carnivals, based around famous characters of old-west Oklahoma and Arkansas lore including Isaac Parker, the "hangman" of the title. (The highlight of the book is probably that part wholly given over to the speeches of the characters in one of the "Hangman" performances, as Hays reflects through each of them different views of morality, social responsibility, and conscience). The son of the protagonist is a dreamy idealist determined to go to jail to protest the Vietnam War. The son's girlfriend, a wealthy runaway, and a Vietnam vet blasted by drugs and experience provide counterpoint to the father-son debates on responsibility and accountability that pace the book.

Tha Hangman's Children is not as successful as the Dixie Association partly because the latter has the parameters of the baseball season to give structure to the plot and narrative. Without such a device, the story tends to assume the anarchy implict in the characters themselves, as they flee the law through the midwest of 1968, ending up in a slightly inconclusively at the Chicago Democratic convention street riots of that year. Each chapter in turn is in the first person words of one of the several main characters, which means a constantly shifting view of what is going on, and, in effect, of what the book is about.

Nevertheless, if you love the southern voice and life on the edge insights of Donald Hays, you will stick to the Hangman's Children through its narrative devices and meandering course - just for the pleasure afforded by those passages where it works.

Like all fans of the Arkansas Reds, I wish that more had been written by Hays. The world of the Reds bears another visit, and if the author should be alive and happen to read this, I hope he will give us another look at the hardscrabble life he wholly captures in the Dixie Association and partially revives in the Hangman's Children.