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Andrew Forbes

@utilityofboredom.bsky.social

Human, author. Field Work: On Baseball and Making a Living (@pressassembly.bsky.social). The Diapause (novel), McCurdle's Arm (novella) (@invisibooks.bsky.social). #SABR (Hanlan's Pt). He/him. đź“ŤPeterborough, Ontario linktr.ee/andrewgforbes

1060 Posts333 Follower329 Folgt
Andrew Forbes@utilityofboredom.bsky.social · 4d ago

Cape Breton is not amazing and the views are unspectacular and the hikes aren't magical and the food isn't delicious and the beaches aren't gorgeous and the people aren't friendly and we didn't have the best time and you definitely should not go there.

God-rays spill out of clouds and onto the surface of the ocean.A waterfall on a hike... somewhere in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. Two teenage boys (my sons), me (a middle-aged man), and a lovely woman (my wife) smile into the camera in a selfie taken on the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton. A moody photo taken at dusk of a saltbox house and a flagpole flying the Acadian flag at Cape Breton Highlands National Park.
Andrew Forbes@utilityofboredom.bsky.social · last wk.

25 yrs ago I spent a sunny autumn afternoon in a cafe a few blocks from our 1st apartment reading a stack of magazines. It was a great pleasure then and a perfect memory now. I hope he hangs onto this moment like that, but I've learned that trying to curate your kids' memories is a fool's errand.

My 16 year old son swings in a hammock reading "The Wager" by David Grann. Behind him the sun shines on green grass and steep forested hillsides. Just out of frame the waves of the Gulf of St. Lawrence crash onto a rocky shore.
Andrew Forbes@utilityofboredom.bsky.social · 3w ago

In a motel room in Lévis, Quebec, watching Nats-A's en français, thinking about how criminal it is that there's virtually no baseball in this country anywhere east of here. Just across the river there's the Capitales in the indie Frontier Lg, and then... nothing. A baseball desert. We can do better!

Andrew Forbes@utilityofboredom.bsky.social · last mo.

Asked Alexa who was the greatest catcher in White Sox history. It said Ray Schalk. I asked Alexa if Carlton Fisk was the greatest catcher in White Sox history. It said yes, Fisk was the greatest catcher in White Sox history. Now when I ask who the greatest CWS catcher was was it says Fisk.

Andrew Forbes@utilityofboredom.bsky.social · last mo.

This is an excellent remembrance of Collett Tracey by Cam Anstee. I only had Collett for a novel survey course, and my involvement in In/Words was fleeting (my fault, def not hers), but she continues to exist for me as an example of how to live with literature. cameronanstee.com/2026/06/24/c...

Collett Tracey (1963-2026)

It was a shock this past Saturday to learn that my friend, one-time mentor, and former professor Collett Tracey had died on June 5, 2026 (her obituary is here).   Collett (Source: Facebook) It…

cameronanstee.com

Andrew Forbes@utilityofboredom.bsky.social · last mo.

I get a steady trickle of those AI-generated emails promising to boost my book’s sales/reviews, or secure me access to giant book clubs, and I delete them as soon as they hit my inbox. Sometimes they credit me with writing someone else’s book, but this is something new… 1/4

An email reading: Hello Andrew Forbes, What stands out in The Lost Diamonds of the Frontier Leagues is how the baseball diamond stops being a sporting structure and becomes a kind of temporary civic architecture something communities built, inhabited, and eventually let return to the landscape. The most powerful thread is the way these fields carry layered biographies: not just of players, but of towns shaped by industry cycles, migration, and the slow erosion of economic certainty. Each diamond feels less like a venue and more like a residue of collective attention where labor, leisure, and local identity briefly overlapped before dispersing again into geography.There is also a quiet tension running through the work between visibility and disappearance. Big-league history tends to preserve itself through records and myth, but these frontier leagues survive differently through weathered ground, partial memory, and the stories that remain unarchived. That makes the narrative feel less like sports history and more like cultural archaeology.
Andrew Forbes@utilityofboredom.bsky.social · last mo.

My baseline grumpiness is best explained by the fact that I, like many in my cohort, am now paying for my favourite albums for the 3rd or 4th time, in the 3rd or 4th format, or suffering the indignity of having, like, Joe Henderson's smooth as hell entrance into "Idle Moments" interrupted by an ad.

Andrew Forbes@utilityofboredom.bsky.social · 2mo ago

BEST Father's Day weekend. Took a jog up north to Halfway Lake PP, where the eldest child works. Hiked, swam, got eaten alive by mosquitoes. Waterfalls, moose scat (though no moose seen), possible Eastern wolf sighting, ravens the size of DC-3s. Good times with the best family. I'm a fortunate man.

A vista of unbroken boreal forest.Three people are seen from behind hiking through a forest, with ferns, birch trees, and leaf-covered ground. A vertical rock wall rises to their left.A waterfall on a river, white water spilling over rocks, with dense green vegetation on either side, and a blue sky with fluffy white clouds overhead. A family selfie featuring me, my two teenage sons, my wife, and my 19 year-old daughter. We're in the woods, standing in front of a camping trailer.
Andrew Forbes@utilityofboredom.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Hello from Arnold Anderson Stadium, located in Cockshutt Park, home of the Brantford Red Sox. The Hamilton Cardinals are in town this afternoon. It's a hot one. This is the 9th and final stop on my CBL odyssey, and I think I can now remark on the complete absence of a single raindrop. I'm 9 for 9.

The back of the grandstand at Arnold Anderson Stadium, redeemed with a sign indicating it as the home of the Brantford Red Sox, and with a long list of the club's pennants and titles. The baseball diamond at the stadium, with some red seats visible behind home plate.
Andrew Forbes@utilityofboredom.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Hello from Labatt Memorial Park, situated at the fork of the Thames River in London, Ontario. The field is the "World's Oldest Baseball Grounds," as the sign has it. Est. 1877. Tonight the Welland Jackfish are in town to face the Majors. Lovely evening, unsurpassed setting. Like a postcard.

The covered grandstand at Labatt Park in London, a small baseball stadium with a mix of fold down seats and aluminum benches. We're looking at it from the stands along the right field line. The roof of the main grandstand has a large screen atop it to protect the houses huddled close behind the park.The same park as viewed from the stands behind home plate, just towards first base. The seats are in shaded darkness while the field is brilliant green below a blue sky. Beyond the outfield fence there is a screen of mature trees, and in the background several highrise buildings.