The Boy Who Saved Baseball

John H. Ritter (2003, Penguin Putnam/Philomel 216 pp.)

With The Boy Who Saved Baseball, John H. Ritter ends the long quiet inning that followed the publication of Over the Wall, his eloquent, award-winning novel of baseball and the moral consequence of the Vietnam conflict. Readers will cheer this endearing new novel, which features a cast of likable locals from a dusty small town at the base of the mountains in the Southwest. In The Boy Who Saved Baseball, Ritter walks confidently to the mound, grins at the batter, stretches into a graceful wind up, and delivers perfect pitches through each of 216 pages.

As readers of The Boy Who Saved Baseball, we are introduced to a rag-tag group of 12-year-old friends--male and female--who comprise the local little league team, the Wildcats. The team, which lacks baseball prowess, has bigger powers: It is able to draw Dante Del Gato, a scruffy near-hermit who is a former professional star, out of his mountain retreat to come coach them, and it summons Cruz de la Cruz, a mysterious, charming, and exceptionally talented 12-year-old to the ballpark, too. Cruz, a modern cowboy whose saddle is emblazoned with Cruz-on.com, appears in town just in time to help the Wildcats prepare for the biggest little league game in its history. And in the end, the Wildcats demonstrate the power to face up to huge challenges and to conquer them.

When the Wildcats gather for summer baseball camp in Dillontown, they find themselves in quite a fix. The fate of the entire town rests on their shoulders. Here is how it happens: Many of the town's leaders want to sell Dillontown land to developers who promise to turn the dying community into a thriving oasis-new homes, stores, roads, and a proper recreation center. Most of the land has already been sold when we meet the group, there is one holdout: old Doc Altenheimer, a baseball fan, owns the land that the ballpark sits on. After he is courted by the mayor, who begs him to sell, the historical society, who urges him to protect the field, and Tom Gallagher, his 12-year-old friend whose parents run the baseball camp for local kids every summer, Doc makes an odd decision. He will keep the field if the local team of 12-year-olds can beat their archrival team, a group of kids from the more affluent town south of Dillontown. If the local team loses, he will sell his land, and the developers will tear up the old field to make room for new development, new growth.

The situation looks hopeless to the despondent Wildcats, at first. Tom and his friends, including feisty and strong Maria, cocky Frankie, quiet Rachel, and brainy Ramon, have a lot of heart, but they cannot hit-or catch-and the big game is only five days away. But while they are standing in the field on the first day of baseball camp, where they train and live together, Cruz de la Cruz appears in the outfield:

"The stranger rode in from the east.

"Under the rays of the rising sun, through the dust of a swirling wind, the horseman rode downslope, down Rattlesnake Ridge, just as Blackjack Buck had seen in a vision, dreamed in a prophecy, a century ago. In his rifle scabbard, laced low and tight, he carried a baseball bat made of hand-cut mountain maple, custom-lathed, and sanded to a shine." (page 11)

As the story unfolds, we begin to understand that Cruz de la Cruz, who hits every pitch hurled at him, catches every ball hit toward him, and injects his teammates with confidence, courage, and a new sense of joy in playing the game of baseball, is no normal kid.

On his first night at camp, Cruz takes Tom with him on a secret adventure: they ride their horses to the mountain hideaway of reclusive Dante Del Gato. Del Gato had held the batting record for professional ballplayers, but he quit just before the World Series, and refused to talk about why. After years of living in the mountains, alone, he had earned a reputation of being slightly crazy, anti-social, and downright mean. Cruz wasn't stopped by that reputation; he and Tom ask Del Gato to come coach the team, adding that with his expertise and his secrets, he was surely their only hope. Del Gato surprises even Tom and Cruz when he appears at the ballpark and agrees to be the coach.

His training methods are unusual, to say the least. He has the kids scramble down the mountain during free form runs, has them follow the blinks of a string of Christmas lights with their eyes, in order to help them retrain their neural pathways so that they will follow the baseball with their eyes and their minds, and has them do batting practice against a softball pitcher, so that they learn to anticipate the spin and timing of a ball thrown in any manner.

Cruz, too, teaches his new friends some secrets; he has developed a computer simulation that helps them learn how to judge the speed and spin of a baseball when they bat; the team members spend their nighttime hours in the school library at "batting" practice.

Encouraged not only by Del Gato and Cruz, but also by the adults who march into the camp to the tunes of the school band, and with "platters of mango y jalapeño salsa, crumbled goat cheese, fresh cilantro con limón, lettuce, tomatoes, an iron skillet of Spanish rice with diced tomatoes and black olives, another with refried pinto and black beans smothered in cheese, three kilo baskets of warm tortillas under white cloth, and grilled chicken strips kept warm in a pan of bubbling brown sugar, tequila, ginger, and lime juice marinade" (p. 105), the Wildcats start to think and act like one body--a true team. They work harder than they ever have during the week of baseball camp, and slowly begin to think that with their two special weapons, Coach Del Gato and Cruz de la Cruz, they might just have a chance at winning the Big Game.

Then, as quickly and mysteriously as he arrives, and on the eve of the Big Game, Cruz disappears. When he rides his horse away from camp, he leaves Tom and the others to prove to themselves that they can be winners--by themselves.

The game itself is an epic one. Tom, who is the worst player of the group, has to play, and ends up pitching when Maria, the team's best pitcher, is hit by a line drive and is in too much pain to continue on the mound. In the final inning, as a series of hits and errors accumulate, the Wildcats actually win. The kids and their supporters are jubilant-until all realize that in the excitement, old Doc has suffered a fatal heart attack. Because he had no will and no family to claim his estate, his land would not be protected after his death, but would be sold to the highest bidder-no doubt, the developers.

Tom and his teammates were inconsolable, sad about Doc's death and discouraged that their efforts to save the town by winning the game have been useless-until Tom looks in the back of his "dreamsketcher" notebook at the "words of encouragement" that Doc had penned there a week earlier, on the day that Tom sat on his front porch and discussed the future of the ballpark and the town with him.

This uplifting novel is a joy to read and to carry in the mind. It is a treasure that will bring energy, laughter, and thoughtful discussion to middle school classrooms. Like Ritter's previous novels, it is about baseball, but also about friends, families, and heroes, and about the ways that the past and present inform the future. Even the most reluctant adolescent readers will have fun finding the puns and word play that Ritter sprinkles throughout.

Some of my favorite examples include these: The title of the prologue is "In the big inning." A newscaster explains to Tom, "Don't you see, kid? This Big Game, your situation here, has caught the attention of the entire nation. It's David and Goliath! It's loyalty versus big bucks...It's a metaphor for the entire game of baseball" (p. 154), then adds emphasis, "I'm telling you buddy. It's more than a metaphor. This could be a meta-five." (p. 154).

Adolescents who like to keep notebooks of their own thoughts will find a kindred spirit in Tom, who hides from his classmates to draw and write his thoughts in his dreamsketcher at every opportunity. Young writers will be sure to notice the figurative language and the symbols that float across the pages with the red-tailed hawk. Those who like to meet unusual characters among the people of fiction will delight in watching the antics of Hollis B, who wanders around town with a pretend cellular phone at his ear so that he can comment on all of the action on the streets. Those who are drawn to computers will be pleased to see that even the mysterious Cruz--a kid who seems to be made of legend as well as flesh and blood--is computer savvy; in fact, he creates a computer simulation that allows the team to practice its hitting while sitting in the school library. And savvy readers are encouraged to meet Cruz, and author John H. Ritter, at www.Cruz-on.com and www.JohnHRitter.com

In the movie, Jerry Maguire, the female lead character tells Jerry, "You had me at 'Hello.'" I feel that way about John H. Ritter and his young adult novels. Like others who are among the finest of today's writers for young people, Ritter addresses the realities that trouble today's teens and the forces that shape and reshape local and national cultures. Yet John H. Ritter's game is unfailingly hopeful and encouragingly positive. This book, like the best games, is a joy to experience. He had me at "In the big inning..."

Dr. Pamela Sissi Carroll
Professor of English Education, Florida State University
Editor, THE ALAN REVIEW

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