Mike Donohue asked Mary Bellino for more information on Appel's book because he "would love to hear more about "Chapman's homer" since to my knowledge there was never a game in which the Red Sox beat the Yankees, 5-4, on a Chapman homer. Cf. my post from 10/31/04, pasted below."

Dear Mike and List,

Keats original poem "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" made an alteration that is still under debate. He wrote about "stout Cortez" staring at the Pacific Ocen from a peak in Darien.Perhaps Cortez was as stout as Shade, but it was Balboa who came across the Pacific Ocean.

[Certain scholars argue that Keats choose Cortez to create a juxtaposition to Chapman's translation of Homer, who only delights him when Chapman's translation makes his Odyssey available to him. Cortez conquered Mexico and this may brings to our minds the Aztecs, whose civilization could be compared with the ancient Greek culture. Other studious ask why, other than the rhyme scheme, did Keats select Darien, an area of Panama settled by the Scots in the seventeenth century...]

I have no idea about baseball but from the cutting on "Chapman's homer" I gathered:
(1) that something special must have happened in 1938;
(2) that VN mentioned a game with a "bat" ( and the theme about "bat" and "key in the lock" came up yesterday in the List).

(1) a. Searching through the Chronology offered in Everyman's Library edition, in 1938 Nabokov wrote "Invitation to a Beheading" and James Joyce wrote "Finnegan's (sic) Wake". Hitler invades Poland, World War II begins.

b. I couldn't locate my copy of Jerry Friedman's Timeline to ascertain what could have happened in 1938. I checked the items I had underlined and learned that in 1938 Shade is 40 and Hazel, 4. Twenty years later he will suffer a heart attack.

What else could have happened in 1938 Pale Fire?
There are frequent mentions about years that end with "8" ( Acht). The link bt. "baseball bat" and "key in the whole" takesus to Iris Acht and the secret passage.
In 1938, King Charles was 23 (check this on page 123?) and in 1928 we hear about his first sexual encounter with Oleg.

(2) Carolyn Kunin called my attention to Shade's words ( quoted by Kinbote) about the completion of the poem: " I swung it".

There are also other references to keys ( in CK's note to line 57, we read "All doors have keys. Your modern architect/ is in collusion with psychanalysts...he insists on lockless doors...primal scene.";

line 61 carries the already mentioned "shadow of the doorknob that at sundown is a baseball bat" that I connected with King Charles's "key in the lock" conflagration.

( We learn from Kinbote that when the "reluctant gilt key" finally turned in its lock it "uncovered disparate objects: dregs of many sunsets (find reference in Shade's poem or Kinbote's canceled stars and sunsets); a thirty-twomo edition ( twomo? Check) of Timon of Athens in Zemblan; a toy pail; a 65 carat diamond, shells, chalk, squares of a game. Finally Charles the Beloved found "another keyhole to which the same gilt key was found to fit." He then discovers the secret passage and has a new encounter with Oleg.)

In short: In 1938 something special might have happened bt. Aunt Maud, Shade and Hazel ( aged 4). There are sexual innuendoes through the metamorphosing of a baseball bat into a key in the lock ( sexual symbolism) and the Freudian "primal scene" ( a little child sees "Mommy" and "Daddy" in bed, or any other kind of coupling couple...)

All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.