On Pulitzer Prize winners and Baseball

Well, another week, another missed deadline – story of my life. Maybe it’s because I have too many deadlines in my job! (Good excuse, I’ll keep using it.)

This week I read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which was fantastic.  I only realised after finishing it that it won a Pulitzer prize (well deserved). I’ve read quite a few Pulitzer prize winners and I think I’m going to hunt down some more because I’ve really loved all the ones I’ve read. They seem to pick stories that are unusual, told in a creative way and are on a topic that’s a bit off the beaten path.

Recommendations from the Pulitzer Prize list:

2001: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

2003: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

2006: March by Geraldine Brooks

2007: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

2011: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Also, The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen, was a runner up.

I went to the baseball yesterday and now I have an interesting and important debate for you all to think about. This morning I said to my colleague “I went to the baseball yesterday.” And he said unless I went to a baseball, I had to specify that I went to the baseball game. I’m 100% certain that in NZ we would say “I’m going to the rugby” (or cricket). Now, just because rugby and cricket don’t include the word “ball” in their name doesn’t, to me, make them different to the rest of the sports. The name of the sport is baseball. You would say “I play baseball”, “I like baseball”, “Baseball is a waste of time and money.”

So that’s my rant/query. What’s the difference between the word rugby and the word baseball that I can’t use them in the same way?