Peter Case: Do You Want A Man Of Steel?

BACKSTAGE, AFTER a show, Peter Case is talking baseball. The game is one of Case's passions: he tells of his recent visit to Cooperstown and zealously endorses a book he's been reading on the road, Philip Roth's excellent "history" of the Patriot Baseball League, The Great American Novel. He says he's got an almost-finished tune called 'The Baseball Song', which he plays after some urging. It's fairly hilarious, being about an emigre from Cuba ("Where they don't play pro ball no more") who has long-ball power ("He hits 'em in the cheap seats where you can't buy a beer"). The six or seven people backstage applaud, and Peter Case is pleased.