The Boy Who Saved Baseball

“Doc’s voice rose up loud and strong. ‘I hereby propose a good old-fashioned baseball game to settle the matter. A team from that new summer camp down the road versus a team from our camp here in town. Like they’ve done the past few years, only this time it’s really going to mean something. One Big Game. Do or die. If our team wins, I pull out of this deal and this town stays the way it is. If they lose, bring on the bulldozers.’”

Doc, who seems to know his time is short, vacillates between disrupting the lives of people he has lived with and cared for all his life or making way for the seemingly inevitable process of suburban sprawl with the modernization it will bring. Here he sidesteps responsibility by suggesting the baseball showdown that immediately spotlights Tom. Ritter’s reference to Doc’s voice as loud and strong is an ironic reference to the ongoing theme of Tom’s inability to speak.

“Tom watched the vehicles approach. And soon his mood began to change. Son, this ancient baseball field built in a puny lake bed, with its plywood-covered grandstands and peeling blue paint, its sunken-pit, stone-wall dugouts with their sway-back timer roofs, the brown tumbleweeds bunched up against the backstop—soon the whole bedraggled ballpark came alive with possibilities. It was almost as if the field had a spirit of its own.”

Ritter uses the revitalization of the Lucky Strike baseball field through the renewed interest of the community as a metaphor for revitalizing the entire dormant community. More broadly, it also represents the potential of revitalization available to those individuals and communities willing to work to recover what was precious in the past. Tom, embarrassed even to have sparked this resurgence, remains doubtful and quietly negative throughout. He even toys with the idea of quitting the team, which would result in too few players and a forfeit, ending the drama. Through this contradiction, Ritter implies that strength of belief is not as important as acting upon one’s hopes and best intentions.

“‘I’m Cruz de la Cruz,’ he said. ‘From Paloma. Here’s my insurance waiver and two hundred dollars. I bat right, throw right, I’m mainly a shortstop, but I can pitch or play anywhere. Hope I can still sign up.’”

Just as Tom embodies doubt, the mysterious Cruz embodies hope and confidence. He appears miraculously at the first gathering of Wildcats, appearing to fulfill the team’s needs in every respect. Within the first few minutes of meeting the team, he mentions climbing the mountain to meet Dante, locking eyes with Tom at the suggestion. Cruz acts out everything Tom fantasizes about but is too fearful to attempt.

“‘Wildcats! On behalf of the citizens of Dillontown, we salute you. Not only are you our baseball team, but you represent the history and spirit of this town. And now, you are the town’s only hope to retain its heritage.’

That last remark caused the musicians to break into a mad, electric frenzy of toots, hoots, clacks, and booms.

When they stopped, Daisy continued. ‘As your loyal fans, we are here to offer our support in order to help you prevail in the Big Game, the most crucial game of our lives.’”

From the Wildcats’ first day of training camp, the townspeople gather at Lucky Strike Field to supply meals, bring food, and boost the players’ spirits. Ritter uses the growing presence of Dillontown’s citizens to emphasize the underlying reality that the team represents the community. The author’s key idea is that, in the same way, an individual can inspire a team, a team can lift the community it represents with renewed hope.

“‘Well, Jerry—no offense—but we all know what’s happened in these Big Games over the last few years. Now, you’re a great science teacher, don’t get me wrong. But I just don’t think you have the knowledge or the capability to coach these ballplayers to the point where they’d have even half a chance to win that game.’

All the burrito chomping stopped. Paper plates plopped. Everyone looked at Mr. Gallagher.”

Speaking for many in the community, Daisy Ramirez expresses the sentiment that Jerry Gallagher, Tom’s dad, should step down as coach. Some citizens oppose him because he is not a good manager and lacks great baseball knowledge. Others oppose him, fearing he would sabotage his team because he favors new development. Ritter uses Jerry as an example of someone who gives his best to a cause that he might not wholeheartedly support. Jerry proves unwilling to resign despite the community’s skepticism, demonstrating integrity in the face of those who openly question his commitment and leadership.

“I see days of discord, doom, and gloom.

I see a swirling wind.

Under the rays of the rising sun,

I see a stranger from the east ride in.

The stranger spurs a great man’s death.

I see Dillontown torn asunder—

Lest the dead man’s secret can be learned

Before the town falls prey to plunder.

Oh, the stranger lies between lies and truth,

But the truth lies here, my friends.

A double-cross begins the day,

And by a double loss it ends.”

These couplets comprise the last three stanzas of the deceased prospector and prophet Blackjack Buck. The poetry is cryptic, forcing each listener to guess about the various elements and overall meaning. With Cruz de la Cruz meaning “cross of the cross” in Spanish and by having him arrive by riding a horse in from the east, Ritter implies that Cruz is part of the double cross and double loss, though the precise meaning of the prophecy is not revealed until the final chapter.

“She twisted around, banged her pillow, then lay back down against it. She’d only said a few words, but for Tom, they were strong, beautiful words. We’re all desperados. We’re in this together. Go for it. Who cares about a dumb ol’ prophecy? Who cares if we’re facing some overcoached, over-smug baseball team? And who cares if a wild girl who might sit up and talk to you at any moment is sleeping just twenty feet away?”

A sub-theme running through the narrative is Tom’s awakening to his strong, affectionate feelings for María. Tom’s attraction to her is partly due to María being everything Tom is not: athletic, outspoken, and confident. In passages like this, Ritter captures the fear and exhilaration of pubescent first love.

“‘See, they used to live all over the county, depending upon the season. […] But back then a lot of people from the east were moving out here. And when they saw the Indians leave, they swarmed in. They figured the Indians were moving away for good. And by the time the Kumeyaay migrated back the next season, their land was occupied.’

‘Oh man,’ said Cruz, pointing a finger at Tom. ‘See? Same problem we got today. Developers.’”

Ritter is serious in comparing the land developers of the current era to the Western European descendants of previous eras who occupied ancestral lands of Indigenous peoples. In an earlier comment, Cruz condemns greed as the force that leads people away from insight and good decisions. This establishes the author’s thematic resistance to the encroachment and redevelopment characteristic of modern land developers.

“Del Gato moved his eyes from Tom to Cruz, then breathed out his nose like a bull. ‘So what do you boys want?’

Cruz glanced over and lifted his chin at Tome with expectant eyes.

Me? thought Tom. Are you insane? Tom’s eyes were so wide, he felt that if he leaned forward, they’d fall out. Eyes that said, ‘Don’t you know anything about me yet?’ Words swirled inside his head as if they were caught going around a giant toilet bowl while Tom tried to fish one—any one—out. […]

Finally, Cruz stepped in as a pinch hitter.”

From his arrival, Cruz continually places Tom in positions that challenge him to step forward and act upon his ideas and intentions. This continues through the narrative, even after Cruz disappears before the big game, forcing Tom to pitch the final inning with the crossfire hurricane pitch Cruz taught him. As the novel progresses, Tom grows in his ability to speak out. Ritter implies that Cruz’s real purpose was empowering Tom to breathe life into his dreams.

“Del Gato walked to the gate near the dugout, eyeing the diamond, eyeing the players, with the eyes of a mountain lion. He did not enter the field, but stood at its edge, as if sniffing the wind for trouble.

Mrs. Gallagher stepped forward. ‘Hello, Dante,’ she called from second base. ‘Long time no see. May I help you?’

Tom’s mouth fell open.

[…] ‘I was just about to ask you the same thing.’”

By breaking a hole through the wall around Dante’s compound, Cruz does the same thing for the ex-pro that he does for Tom. Exposed to the outside world and, for the first time in years, to baseball, Dante learns that the place where he learned to play the game is about to become a lake. The players assume this is the miracle they have awaited. However, they have no awareness that the arrival of Tom in Dante’s compound stirs him into action because of his participation in a prior miracle—saving the life of Tom’s mother, Helen Gallagher.

“Del Gato waved everyone close. ‘Look, I’m not a coach,’ he stated. ‘I’m a ballplayer. Big difference. But as long as I’m here, I want to show you something I think’s the most important thing I ever learned. […] Baseball is a game of anticipation, looking ahead at possibilities, trying to predict the future. On any pitch, anything might happen. Your job is to anticipate. To look ahead. And be ready.’

He turned and gave the small mountain beyond right field a glance and a nod. ‘And I learned to do that right up there.’ He began to walk. ‘Let’s go.’”

The first lesson Del Gato teaches the Wildcats is the one he judges as most important—the ability to see and anticipate. He makes them run down the mountain to the baseball field, an exercise he repeats each day until the players grow adept at sensing the unseen trails, obstacles, and dangers. By allowing them to learn how to race down the mountain, something they cannot stop once started, he also teaches them to trust themselves and observe other things on the mountain that are not in their paths.

“‘Oh, no, you misunderstand,’ said the mayor. ‘I was about to say we’ve had phone calls about children screaming and running devil-may-care up and down the hillsides. And we are concerned.’

Alabaster Jones pushed the mayor aside. ‘I got a problem.’ He stood face-to-face with Del Gato. ‘The kind of new residents we want to attract to this town are good, honest, high-classed people who are going to be very turned off by the likes of you. So do us all a favor and just crawl back into your truck and drive on out of here. Leave us civilized folks to work this matter out on our own.’”

Ritter uses this ironic and symbolic exchange to encapsulate the great financial struggle underlying the youth baseball game taking place. Like many posturing politicians, the mayor pretends to care about the welfare of the team members, suggesting that the Gallaghers and Dante are placing the children in danger. Alabaster is equally disingenuous but much more sinister, challenging Del Gato while realizing that, should Dante respond physically, it would end his coaching stint. Ritter’s choice of the name Alabaster, meaning white and smooth, symbolizes the forces of the financial interests and developers who care about the property but not the team.

“Something just told me that this sport was on thing we ought to preserve. As is. Especially the World Series. To me, that’s sacred ground. […] …I just felt that if I kept playing, I’d start to feel worse and worse about what I was doing. It’d be like if you were a poker player who could see everyone’s cards. Sure, you’d always win, get as rich as you want, all kinds of fame and glory. But I’d always played ball with integrity. For the love of the game. And so, as it turned out, that was also the reason I quit.”

To Doc, Cruz, and Tom, Dante explains why he quit pro baseball, ghosting his team at the beginning of the 1984 World Series. He had become so adept at seeing the incoming pitch that he could always get a hit, giving him an ability no other player or team possessed. Having dealt with the mayor and a banker earlier in the chapter, whom Ritter depicts as being duplicitous and having no integrity, the author portrays Dante as the player with ultimate moral character: He loves the game so much that, knowing he has an unfair advantage over everyone else, he refuses to play.

“‘Pretty soon, you won’t just be guessing where the ball will be, you’ll actually calculate its path head of time and then meet it there with your bat.’

‘Oh,’ said Rachel. She paused a moment. ‘So, it’s like running down a mountain. You see the path way out ahead, so you know right where you’ll put your feet without topping to think about it.’

Cruz nodded. ‘Yeah. Only we do it with a bat and ball.’”

Ritter uses this passage to build metaphor upon metaphor. Cruz describes his video simulation that allows batters to view an incoming baseball, bringing together Dante’s lesson about the need to see and anticipate, reinforced by running down the mountain, and fulfilled by the notion of watching an incoming pitch. Beneath these elements of vision and anticipation, however, the young people learn to face life this way: watch, anticipate, prepare, react. By extension, this is Ritter’s message to the reader as well.

“‘Tell me, Tom. Think you’ll end up writing books? I mean, for a living?’

[…] ‘Some guys do.’

Doc stood and held out the Dreamsketcher. ‘Son, you will, too, one day. You’re on the right track here. Mark my words. One of these days this book here’ll be worth a lot of money.’”

Doc’s words are ironic in that the note he left for Tom on the back page of his Dreamsketcher notebook was actually his last will and testament, in which he left all his personal property to Tom. This made the book worth more than a million in its own right and worth even more, considering that Tom’s intention to retain the property for a baseball field would cost potential developers multi-millions. Doc had been offered $6 million for the property. Ritter’s story is also most self-reflective here, as he grew up very much like Tom and, as Doc prophesied, makes his living by writing.

“The mayor slammed the tabletop. ‘No one wants to move anyone off any land. That’s laughable. They only want to build beautiful homes in beautiful country.’

Cruz did not back down. […] ‘...in order to do that, they’ll have to scrape the hills, fill in the canyons, build new roads, put in sidewalks, fences, curbs, and gutters. Before they’re done, they will bury this land. […] Lots of Americans go all day and never once touch the earth. They walk from carpet to tile to pavement to concrete, they sit in their cars and drive and drive, and never once set foot on the earth. […] And that’s why I say what they want to do is move us off the land.’”

As someone raised out of doors, observing and appreciating nature, Cruz views the earth as sacred. Thus, in his view, those who wish to permanently deface the earth ruin that which is precious and irreplaceable. In his view, those who make it possible for human beings to live without interacting with nature or touching the earth remove people from their natural habitat and impose an unnatural state of existence. Ritter perceives this as an aberration that accompanies urban sprawl.

“‘You know, Cruz, you might just have something here,’ Mr. Gallagher observed. ‘Did you know there’s clear scientific evidence that the neural pathways in our brains can be altered by repetitious action?’

‘Yes, I’ve heard that.’ Cruz gave him a serious look. ‘But you know, I had to hear it over and over about a hundred times before it sank in.’”

Ritter portrays Cruz as being the person every character needs in some way. He challenges each individual in a manner that makes them grow, as when he continually puts Tom in the spotlight and challenges the mayor’s perception of a quality lifestyle. Here, he humorously teases Jerry, Tom’s dad, rather than expressing that he already understood the transformative value of repetition. Ritter also uses this passage to shore up Dante’s insistence that practicing the same motions, placements, and situations is needed to prepare for the upcoming game.

“‘We’re not trying to hurt you,’ said Tom. ‘We don’t have anything against you at all. Why are you trying to hurt us?’

‘Oh, you poor, poor boy. Listen, if you win that game, you’ll be hurting me far more than what I could ever do to you. And I mean right here. […] In my wallet.’

[…] ‘You see, son, I was once a lot like you. I was young. I had stars in my eyes. But what you don’t understand is that in the game of life, money wins. […]’

‘Remember,’ he said, ‘without money and the wish for even more money, Columbus never would’ve sailed to America. There where would we all be today? Think about it.’”

As the narrative progresses, the inner natures of the characters become more apparent. Dante’s compassionate heart emerges, as does Doc’s wistful loneliness. Alabaster’s true self comes into sharp focus in this passage. He physically assaults Tom, threatening him with the loss of his parents’ jobs and the town’s dissolution. When Tom asks why he is trying to hurt Dillontown’s citizens, Alabaster instead talks about his finances. Ritter concludes the exchange with the ultimate subtle self-condemnation. Alabaster lifts up Columbus as a paragon of successful greed, implying that he condones the historical displacement of indigenous Americans by Western Europeans, something that will be de facto repeated if the developers succeed.

“‘I just believe that when people do things with good intentions, good things happened. Like when Tom and Cruz rode off to see Del Gato. But when we do stuff out of fear, bad things happen.’ She looked around. ‘A lot of people are afraid of what might happen tomorrow. But we can’t be. Then, whatever happens will turn out okay.’

‘Even if we lose?’ asked Frankie.

‘Even if we lose.’”

With the team lying in a circle the night before the game, Rachel shares an insight that voices one of Ritter’s principles for facing life’s difficult challenges: act out of good intentions rather than fear, which will make any outcome acceptable. Rachel does not realize that her words offer a saving grace to Tom, who fearfully considers throwing the game because of Alabaster’s threats. Cruz seems to understand the power and benefit of her words, playfully asking her to run away with him—his last words in the book.

“‘Everyone, just take a deep breath. Be alert out there, look ahead, and think ahead. Because the deal is, we got one more mountain to run down. All right?’ He held out his hand. The players all reached in and set their hands on top of his. ‘Wildcats, run,’ he said. ‘On three. Uno, dos, tres.’

‘WILDCATS, RUN!’

[…] Then, to a thunder-crack roar and a standing ovation, they sprinted out of the dugout and onto the field. Tom could not even feel his feet touch the earth or the ball in his hand. Rachel took a detour on her way to center field, stopping near the right field foul pole to quietly and politely puke.”

For Tom, almost all the story threads have come together by the time the team runs onto the diamond. In the week since Doc created the challenge game, Tom’s life has changed immeasurably, the final difference being the disappearance of Cruz, shifting Tom from right field to first base. Cruz’s disappearance also forces Dante into an ironic position. The best player on the team ghosts the team, just as Dante did to the Padres before the World Series.

“‘Mr. Del Gato,’ he said. ‘I want to pitch.’

[…] ‘Look, said Tom. ‘I’m the worst fielder out here. I’ll do the least harm if I pitch—as long as I keep the ball low and get it over.’ […] What if Maria goes to first base? That’s her natural spot, and she wouldn’t have to run all that much. Then if I pitch, everyone else can stay where they are, at their strongest positions.’”

Ritter foreshadowed this request from Tom when he had Cruz playfully show Tom his crossfire hurricane pitch. This puts Tom in the position of shutting down the Vikings without allowing them to score another run. Ritter portrays Tom as having been instrumental in every aspect of saving Dillontown from the developers.

“As the ball rolled all the way to the backstop, Clifford dared down the first-base line, and Frankie scramble home from third and scored.

Tie game! Safe all around! Clifford had reached first, and Wil had run all the way to third.

Tom looked into the sky, as if something up there would explain the wind that had swooped down out of nowhere. He saw nothing but a few clouds and a red-tailed hawk circling the field, riding an updraft.”

The appearance of the sudden, whirling wind, which forces the Viking pitcher to throw several pitches off course, allowing a hit batsman, a wild pitch base runner, and Tom’s sky-high, uncatchable popup, coincides with the death of Doc, which is unnoticed until the conclusion of the game. Ritter’s inclusion of the soaring hawk, riding an “updraft,” implies that Doc, seemingly incarnated as the mighty bird and steering the events of the final inning, has taken animal form.

“‘Here’s why I’m bringing this up. Whatever the heck it was I did for your mom that night—and for you and your dad, too, in a way—this week, your family returned the favor.’ For just the briefest moment, Tom thought he saw a grin break across Del Gato’s face. ‘So thanks for breaking down my wall.’”

Dante gives Tom the full details of the night he saved Helen’s life, then expresses his thanks, saying that Tom has returned the favor. When Dante describes “breaking down my wall,” he means it both literally—as the adobe structure Cruz demolished—and figuratively, since the baseball game challenge summoned Dante out of his insular world back into the community with the people of Dillontown. Dante shores up the miraculous nature of the narrative by telling Tom that the spirit of his deceased grandmother summoned him to the unconscious Helen.