The patterns and structures of hypertext narrative sometimes seem complex, and a few critics dismiss hypertext because it does not always fit into familiar dramatic structures. Farther afield from the friendly confines of literature, the narratives of sport are also large and complex. Perhaps the patterns of hypertext may seem less forbidding as we find them in the narratives of professional baseball. While pundits fret that television and new media somehow make the audience passive and inattentive, thoughtful observation reveals surprising scope and depth even in popular entertainment.
Cycles are central to hypertext and to baseball.
In hypertext fiction, the rhythms of recurrence created by intersecting link paths are perhaps the central feature. Cycles pervade baseball. My father took me to see Stan Musial and Ernie Banks, my grandmother was there when Ruth called his shot. While pundits claim that TV and computers have shortened and corrupted our attention spans, popular taste actually reflects an enormous appetite for narrative cycles of grand scale. The narrative of baseball spans seasons and decades.