"You Could Look it Up” is a baseball story by James Grover Thurber that is quite entertaining and thought provoking. The baseball team is working very hard to win the first place in the national league under their manager Squawks Magrew. What makes "You Could Look it Up” more fun is the “baseballese,” language and the irony that narrator has employed in the story.
This is a story of a cigar smoking, trash talking, beer drinking dwarf who takes part in a big league baseball team is quite entertaining. In this instance, we see verbal irony in the story. The story by James Grover Thurber involves a three-foot adult who has brought in to take a walk in a baseball game. The irony of the story is when Magrew encountered midget. Magrew puts a uniform on widget so that he tours with the team. This is a very important game for the team. With two players out and the players in the second and third base in only one-run game, Magrew involves the widget by sending it up to go and pinch hit for the best hitter on the team. Magrew commands the widget not to swing the bat for the reason that there is no pitcher that can be able to throw a strike to man that is 20” high.
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For three times consecutively the pitcher misses the strike zone. But it’s clear that he understands the nature of a pitch that is not favorable to hit and the midget moves backward and forward and tops it reasonably along the baseline and works hard to leg out the hit. There is no way for him to reach the fist base before the throw because of his little legs. Magrew gets furious because of the midget as the opposing players starts falling over themselves in their efforts to grab the ball so as to throw it to first base. A throw is taken by the first baseman which stomps on the bag before the midget can get it. Magrew takes hold of the midget and throws him into the middle of the field. A situational irony is evident when the midget is got hold of mid-air by a center fielder that is coincidentally running because the game has ended. The referee calls the midget out after that incident.
The author employs a very simple anecdote and changes it into a window on the well-known past. In our perspective, it is a double lens because a story of baseball tale is explained circa 1940 regarding the events circa 1910. The central baseball event rotates around a last-minute recruitment of a widget to be part of a team taking part in a major league.
As it’s clear to any baseball player and fan, the most important factor in pitching is how accurate a throw is placed by the pitcher b within the strike zone of the batter at the plate, allowing a reasonable chance for the batter to strike the ball but otherwise making it as hard to hit as possible. Any unusually short batter makes it makes it hard for a pitcher since it allows only a small target space. In real practice, a very small player like the widget is an uncertain athlete asset for such a big team taking part a major league. The way Thurber handles the characters with dialogue and in the first-person narration by one of the characters, brings the spirit of the old-time baseball in the air.