The Dixie Association is Donald Hays’ fictional account of a released prisoner who plays baseball for a minor league team in the South called the Arkansas Reds. This man is Hog Durham, who goes by no other name. After getting out of jail, the coach of the Reds, Lefty (who is known as the town communist to the religious fanatics), picks up Hog because of his batting and fielding skills. The Reds need players, and Lefty has a tendency to recruit less-than-perfect baseballers. Hog readily joins, as his friend Julius Common Deer plays for the same team, and soon finds himself immersed in the world of hits and runs, RBIs and double plays. Along the way, however, there comes to be a little trouble with Hog’s parole officer, where a man named Ratoplan comes along and blackmails Hog to send one of his fellow ballplayers back to Miami. When Hog refuses, Ratoplan digs through his past to try and stick Hog with a robbery that he had never been arrested for. All this, and Hog still has to try and be the hero in a game where the Reds are pitted against the Selma Americans for the championship.

Hays gets to the bottom of his characters. The Southern talk is great and humorous, but not to the point where it could be annoying. Most of the characters have some depth to them, whether it be Hog’s own views on marriage and love or another team member’s struggle with human interaction. The one thing that does hinder the novel a little is that there are many characters to remember, causing the reader to have to go back and look at who each person was and their relevance to the novel. A few times, it was hard to distinguish the difference between Ratoplan and a lawyer with a similar name.

The plot wavers a bit between tense conflict and more comedic baseball action, which felt just about right. Sometimes the conflict of Hog’s re-conviction disappears and reappears, though, and it makes one think whether or not it was actually so important to the novel at hand. It is hard to tell which plot line should be focused on more – Hog’s new love interest and his ability to continue playing baseball, or the recurring blackmail and worry of being sent back to jail. It was only here that felt like there was a confliction of where the plot was headed, which was not necessarily a bad thing, but one which seemed like it could be ironed out a little better.

However, when Hays writes about baseball, he delivers fast pitch after fast pitch. He does not stop and give all of the statistical analyses of the games, nor a play-by-play approach. Only during the crucial innings does he resort to this, giving the reader more of a skim through of the game than unneeded slow-motion replays.

Hays’ voice is also very strong. From the first line of the book, there was some sort of pleasant connection of words that made it enjoyable to keep reading. Maybe it was Hays’ sense of humor; maybe it was also the fact that he did a great job of giving voice to Hog. Either way, Hays’ writing makes it hard to put The Dixie Association down.

Yet the novel is rather long for what it has to say. Some aspects of the book were too drawn out, like Hog’s extended bout with the police and the problems he faces with Ratoplan. It makes sense that this would be a big dilemma, but it is just too long and frankly, loses steam in the last fourth of the book.

The Dixie Association does have some serious themes going on. Tackling organized religion is always a tough subject, and though Hays does argue against it to some extent, he has limited himself to a point where it does not seem like a diatribe. In fact, one could even say that Hays gives some pretty valid points about joining a religious sect. Some other themes it touches upon include changes in individuals and if they should be judged for their past sins, the plight of an aging baseball player, and a discussion on individuals’ need to get away from society’s evils to just enjoy a bit of living. Some get a little more focus than others, but even those that are just touched upon seem an important critique.

The voice of the South has been spoken by Hays through Hog Durham, and if one is looking for a good Southern culture novel or a good baseball book, turn to The Dixie Association. It has an ample helping of both, and even after 20 years, the book still speaks to the masses.