Baseball Etc

Here is a detail that I missed when summarizing the contents of Poul Anderson's and Gordon R Dickson's Hoka (New York, 1985). On the cover and the title page, the title is Hoka whereas, on the second title page, the title is Hoka!

I do not understand baseball and certainly do not understand the Hoka-Sarennian baseball game in "Joy In Mudville":

"...to lay down a bunt..." (p. 41)

"...the first six men up scored two men and loaded the bases." (p. 42)

"Lefty bounced the next pitch off the right field wall for a stand-up triple." (p. 47)

"The tying run was on, and there were two outs left to bring it home." (p. 54)

OK?

But it ends with yet another insight into Hokan psychology:

"To Hokan taste, it was almost an anticlimax after the glorious victory of the fictional Casey when the factual one playfully tapped a home run over the left field and won the Sector pennant." (p. 63)

That fits with everything that we have been told about the Hokas in the six previous stories.

At the end of Earthman's Burden, Alex said that he would visit Earth after a baseball game and, sure enough, he is back on Earth at the beginning of "Undiplomatic Immunity" so maybe I am about to read something more comprehensible?