Heart of a Champion

“For the next half hour Mr. Winter showed me how to field a ground ball, set my feet, and throw. He didn’t yell once, or act bored, or make me feel stupid.

After that he hit Jimmy and me fly balls and pop-ups. It was the same thing again. Mr. Winter got all over Jimmy if he made the slightest mistake. But he never barked at me. He treated me a thousand times better than he treated his own son, which is one of those things that makes no sense at all, but is true anyway.”

While Mr. Winter can be patient and forgiving with Seth, who is far less learned and talented than Jimmy, he expects perfect performance and consistency from his son. This is because Mr. Winter is set on Jimmy achieving the professional athletic success that Mr. Winter never did. Seth enjoys the attention and friendship but is ambivalent about the way Mr. Winter treats Jimmy. Meanwhile, Jimmy wants Seth to come to practice to mitigate the harshness of the treatment he receives.

“Jimmy talked baseball the whole afternoon. Earned run aver ages, slugging percentages, walks-to-strikeouts ratios. It was all new to me. But I wasn’t bored. They say that baseball is like a fever, and that once you catch it, you never recover. That day I caught it.”

When Seth visits Jimmy’s house for the first time, he sees that Jimmy’s bedroom is a shrine to baseball. Seth is introduced to the intricate inner world of the game as well as its esoteric history—and becomes hooked. Unlike other addictions in the narrative, baseball is a dependency with positive side effects, such as the need to focus on the current situation, to rely upon others, and to give one’s best.

“My mother threw me grounders every night during baseball season, and during the next season too. And she would have kept doing it, even when I was in high school, if I’d wanted.

When your father dies, people want to feel sorry for you, they want to say you’ve missed out. And maybe I have missed out on some things. But lots of guys have fathers who have never thrown them a ground ball in their lives. They say they’re too busy, that they have to work. My mother worked full-time as a clerk for San Mateo County, and she cooked and cleaned and kept house and all that stuff. But she found time for me.”

The first in-depth description of Seth’s unnamed mother reveals her to be hard-working and diligent. Seth makes it clear that his mom intends to be present for her son. He is aware that his mother engages with him in traditionally fatherly ways and knows he should value her for this. Throughout the book, despite their occasional conflict, Seth expresses gratitude, respect, and love for his mom.

“I stood a little longer, looking at the shape underneath the jacket, thinking that it wasn’t fair, that nothing should ever have to die, ever. But I also felt strangely glad that I had been there, glad that I had been able to comfort the cocker spaniel at the final moment. The entire walk home I found myself thinking about my father, about his last I wished that someone, even a stranger, had been with him when he died. I didn’t tell my mother what happened. I don’t know why; I just didn’t. And I thought I acted normally that night. But before my mother went to bed, she twice asked if something was wrong. Both I told her I was fine, but I know she didn’t believe me. Sometimes I can feel my mother about my father. I guess she can feel it when I’m thinking about him.”

Walking home from school, Seth sees a car hit a small dog and then speed away. After describing the incident to the dog’s owners, he feels grateful that he could be with the dog in its last moments of life. To spare his mother’s feelings, he does not tell her about the incident, which makes him think of how his father died alone. Nevertheless, he senses that his mother is aware and yoked to his feelings about his dad.

“My father’s death had left a hole in my life, a hole that could never be filled. No matter what Jimmy’s father did, no matter how badly he acted, he was there.

For me it’s different. You can’t see emptiness, but that doesn’t mean you don’t feel it. I’m not saying I feel it all the time. Days, even weeks go by and I don’t think of my father once. But then, out of the blue, the emptiness comes.”

Seth’s introspective thoughts arise after Mr. Winter, with a new girlfriend in his car, offers Seth and Jimmy a ride and Jimmy declines. Jimmy tells Seth he is lucky that his father is dead, ending any doubt about possible embarrassing, unpredictable behavior. But Seth decides that the void of unchanging loss is worse than having a disruptive, unhelpful dad like Mr. Winter.

“It’s hard to say how I felt that afternoon. Mr. Winter was trying to be a good but he overdid it. When Jimmy made a fairly good catch or throw, Mr. Winter acted like he was a Golden Glover.

‘Put that one on the highlight reel! […] Awesome.’ Corny stuff, like that, over and over and the opposite of the way he’d always been.

Jimmy was dying inside. He was stone-faced the whole two hours his father was there.

That put the pressure on me, I had to be doubly cheerful to make up. Mr. Winter and I grinned away at each other while Jimmy glowered at both of us. The whole thing was weird. ”

After Mr. Winter stops drinking, he tries to reestablish ties with Jimmy. He is equally as overbearing but in a laudatory rather than critical way. Seth, caught in the middle, tries to be positive and polite. None of the three characters in this scene is being honest: Mr. Winter is going overboard to impress the son he formerly bullied, Jimmy is intentionally standoffish with a father he resents but misses, and Seth forces himself to keep the atmosphere endurable.

“Sharront sighed. ‘Listen, Barham. Last year you impressed me with your hustle and your baseball smarts. I figured you for my starting second baseman by the time you were a senior. But you don’t hustle, you don’t play smart, and you won’t make varsity. Not this year, not next year, not any year.’ He stopped. ‘Is my message coming through?’

I managed to nod.

‘Good. Now here is what’s going to happen. Coach Blackman is going to sit you on the bench for a couple of games. You use that time as a gut check. Think about whether you want to be a ballplayer or not. And if you don’t want to be, then quit.’”

When Seth’s talented friends make the varsity baseball team and leave him out of their social activities, he feels doubly shunned. He acts out on the baseball diamond, disregarding the good of his junior varsity team and focusing on his own performance. When he ignores the coach’s instructions at a key point in a game, Sharront confronts him. Afterward, he recognizes the coach is right and resumes hustling and playing on behalf of the team.

“‘I admire the way you stick to things, Seth,’ she said. ‘I really do. But have you ever thought that maybe you’ve reached your limit?’

I felt myself go cold, ‘Don’t say that. You’re going to jinx me.’

She spoke softly. ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Everybody has a limit.’

‘I haven’t reached my limit,’ I snapped. ‘Not by a long shot.’

‘Okay, okay. Forget I said anything.’”

After Seth shares his frustration at not being able to hit an 80-mile-an-hour pitch, something Todd and Jimmy pull off with seeming ease, his mom, as is characteristic for her, offers up the real possibility that he simply cannot accomplish what his friends can. One of the markers of their positive, supportive, and close relationship is the fact that they can have such vulnerable and honest conversations.

“There was a strange smile on his face. ‘I’m going to be a major leaguer, Seth. And my father, the biggest jerk in the world, is the reason.’ He paused. ‘Life sure is crazy, isn’t it?’

I thought about my own father, about the influence he would have had on my life. If he’d lived, I’d be a different person. There is no doubt about it. But how? How would I be different? What parts of me would he have brought into the light? And what parts of me would he have darkened? That is the mystery.”

As Jimmy and Seth sit in the shade drinking champagne after Mr. Winter’s wedding to Elizabeth Strong, Jimmy is wrestling with the irony that the father he dislikes also empowered him to become an outstanding baseball player, capable of achieving greatness. In turn, Seth wonders how his father would have molded him, not recognizing the way his life has been molded by his father’s death.

“I was fuming when I slammed my bedroom door shut and hopped onto my bed. I hated being called a liar. I hated being called a drunk. And the fact that I was drunk, and that I was a liar, made me hate it even more.”

When Jimmy, having driven down the mountain road drunk, drops off inebriated Seth at his home, Seth lies to his mother, telling her that he is not drunk. When she confronts him about his lie and sends him to his bedroom, he fumes about what his mother said, mad all the more angry because he knows she is absolutely correct—having a funny, insightful observation about himself.

“I still feel rotten whenever I think about that conversation. Sometimes I think I should have let my mother call Big Brothers, that I should have gone one time like she wanted. But what would have been the point? I would have just had to say no later.

Maybe some guys in my situation would have wanted a man to be a second father to them. But I didn’t. My father is dead. I barely remember him. But nobody is ever going to take his place.”

Opening up to a more mature Seth, his mother for the first time expresses her feelings of inadequacy as a single parent, asking Seth if he would like to be involved in the Big Brothers program. Seth is adamantly opposed to the idea, refusing the notion than someone could fill in for his missing father. He wonders if he should have relented, if only to make his mother feel better.

“I was depressed, but then my depression gave way to a strange exhilaration. I thought about how my father had described him self. The best lousy golfer in the world. Suddenly I knew what he’d meant. Compared to Jimmy and Todd I was lousy. I’d always be lousy. High school baseball was as far as I was ever going to go. But I was determined to be the best lousy baseball player I could possibly be.”

Seth regularly goes to the batting cage and works diligently to hit an 80-mph pitch, which he never achieves. Here, he acknowledges the truth of his mother’s words—that he has limits as an athlete. Admitting his limitations frees him to develop the abilities he does have and grants him peace of mind.

“On the bus home, Jimmy and I rehashed the game. Then, just before we reached Woodside High, he looked out the window. ‘I’ve been thinking of calling my father,’ he said. ‘Maybe asking him to come see a game.’ He turned to me. ‘What do you think?’

‘Sounds like a good idea,’ I answered. ‘He’d show if you asked him.’ […] He leaned back, closed his eyes. ‘I can’t figure myself sometimes, Seth. When my father is around, I wish he would go away.

But when I don’t see him…’ He stopped. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’”

This conversation takes place between Seth and Jimmy after their first varsity baseball game as juniors. Late in the close game, Jimmy and Todd lived up to their potential and secured the win, something that came from their knowledge of each other’s ability and of the nuances of the game. Because Mr. Winter imparted this, Jimmy wrestles with his feelings of ambiguity toward his father.

“She folded her hands in front of her. ‘Something is on your mind. What is it?’

‘Well,’ I said, looking away, ‘I was just wondering if, well, if you think you’ll ever get married again.’

My mother laughed, a quick, embarrassed laugh. ‘What brings this up?’

‘I don’t know,’ I answered. ‘It’s just something that came to me while I was in the shower. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want. It’s no big deal.’

She opened her hands, put them flat on the table. ‘No, it’s a fair question, so I’ll answer. Yes, Seth, if the right man comes along I will remarry, but I promise you it will not be until you’ve moved out of the house.’

I thought about that for a second. ‘Why not sooner?’

‘I don’t know. Just a sense I have, a sense that it would be better for you if I waited.’ She stopped. ‘Am I wrong?’

‘No. You’re not wrong.’”

After turning down an invitation to join other players in an evening of drinking because of a promise he made to his mother, Seth thinks about sacrifices she has made on his behalf. Seth suddenly understands that his mother has dramatically limited her own life to create the best environment for him, which empowers him to be willing to make sacrifices for her.

“She frowned. ‘And there’s something else, too. Something that you know and I know, though you’ve been trying to keep it from me, and maybe from yourself. Your friend isn’t some sort of Peter Pan who just wants to play in the park all day. Jimmy’s got a drug problem or a drinking problem, or both.’

‘You don’t know that,’ I snapped.

She folded her arms across her chest. ‘I can’t prove it, Seth. But I know it. And you know it, too.’”

The evening after Jimmy is suspended from the baseball team for cutting classes, Seth’s mother openly expresses her concerns about Jimmy’s growing addiction issues. It is telling that Seth does not deny what she says, which is evidence that she is correct: Seth does know that Jimmy has a problem with alcohol.

“I sweated bullets before our next game. The whole team did. We were all wondering how we’d play without Jimmy. We knew we could survive a few games without his bat and his glove; we didn’t know if we could win without his heart.”

During Jimmy’s suspension from the team, Seth is moved from his accustomed position at second base to Jimmy’s position of shortstop. There is a general recognition among the players that Jimmy is the best player on the team and also the spirit that fuels it. Seth is unaware that Coach Sharront moved him to shortstop because he is most capable of replacing that spirit.

“Our fielding was super, too. We were wound tight, not in a bad way that causes errors, but like tigers ready to spring. Everybody on the team had a hunger to get to the ball. We made one error in four games—a good stat for a major-league team, amazing for a high-school team.”

When Jimmy returns from his suspension, the team has a sense that they can really perform at their highest level. Here, Seth describes their focus and prowess in the field and at bat. The simile “tigers ready to spring” is an accurate description of the feeling a confident team acquires when they can feel that morale, physical fitness, and game skills are at their peak.

“You don’t decide anything important just once. It would be nice if you could, but you can’t. What really happens is that you have to decide again and again, every day, every hour, every minute. Nothing is ever over.”

Standing in the shower in the locker room, Seth hears Jimmy reluctantly turn down an invitation to an evening of drinking in the park with other players. Deuker often uses the shower as a place of mental revelation, cleansing, and growth. Seth can’t help but sympathize with how hard it must be for Jimmy to resist the temptation to pleasure, particularly when extended by peers; however, Seth also sees that Jimmy is doing his best to fight against the addictive nature of alcohol. The passage is an example of foreshadowing: Jimmy’s struggle against alcohol will emerge as an issue again.

“I stayed up a little longer, sitting in the kitchen and thinking. Actually, I didn’t do much thinking: I felt. I felt the hole in me, the great emptiness inside me that should have been filled by my father. All around that hole were good things. My mother. Jimmy. School. Baseball. Day in and day out, those good things kept me from thinking about that hole, from feeling it. But it was always there.”

In the middle of the night before his team’s game against their chief rival, Seth cannot sleep and discovers his mother is also awake. After their conversation, Seth acknowledges that his father’s death has left a void in his life that can never be filled; however, despite this central emptiness, his life is rich with people and experiences. This black hole might be permanent, yet it is surrounded by limitless glorious possibilities.

“Jimmy’s mother’s head was bowed, and her hand was covering her eyes. Sharront was looking down too. He was about ten feet away when he finally looked up.

Tears were streaming down his face.

In that instant I knew.

I knew that being kicked off the team was nothing; that the state tournament was nothing; that the major leagues are nothing; that baseball is nothing.

Sharront drew even with me. He put his hands on my shoul ders. ‘Jimmy is dead,’ he whispered. Then he turned back to Mrs. Winter. The two of them continued down the corridor and disappeared into a room.”

Seth is awakened in the middle of the night by his teammate Alex who had been drinking in the park with other players including Jimmy. He tells Seth that Jimmy wrecked his car and has been taken to the hospital. Racing to the hospital, Seth’s mind is a jumble of thoughts about Jimmy’s physical injuries and the possible results for Jimmy and the team. When he sees Jimmy’s mother and Coach Sharront, he immediately realizes what Sharront confirms. The insignificance of all he had worried about instantly becomes clear.

“As I sat there, I tried to string words together in my head that would say what Jimmy meant to me. I thought that if I could string them together, I could remember them, and so I’d be sure to always remember him. I thought about coming back from L.A. and meeting him for the first time. I thought about John Tustin. I thought about drinking beer at Todd’s house, about turning double plays, about Wiffle ball, about the pitching machine at Tom Wells, about making the varsity. I added all those things up — and a thousand other things, too — but the sum wasn’t right. They didn’t add up to Jimmy. They didn’t come close. He was my friend. It’s the only word I have for him.”

After Jimmy’s burial, Seth sits alone under a tree, mentally walking through his life with Jimmy. Ultimately he recognizes that Jimmy was more than the sum of their experiences—he was his closest friend. The depth of true friendship makes this loss akin to the loss of a parent or mate.

“We started to celebrate. The whole team—outfielders, infielders, the guys on the bench—all of us raced to the pitcher’s mound. We even managed a few screams of joy before we remembered. Then we looked at one another and suddenly we didn’t know what to do. The cheers died in our throats. We were all there, in the center of the diamond, and for a moment we were all quiet.

We’d said we were playing for Jimmy, but we’d really played for ourselves. We’d wanted to pretend that death doesn’t happen, that everything just goes on and on. And maybe someday we would be able to pretend. But not then, not at that moment. Jimmy had the heart of a champion, not us. It was his championship, not ours.”

The team votes to play their final game in dedication to Jimmy. Playing in Jimmy’s position, Seth secures the last out and the team rushes the field. In the next instant, their joy is swamped by grief. This game is a moment of closure for the team, which loses the next game, ending the season.

“I remembered something that woman had told me. ‘You might try writing it down,’ she’d said as I was leaving. ‘Sometimes by writing things down you can understand them better. And once you understand them, you can put them behind you. You can go on.’

So that’s what I’ve done. I’ve written it down. And now that I’m finished, I’m not sure whether she was right or not.”

Seth’s grief counselor points out that although Jimmy was Seth’s best friend, Seth has not been expressing his grief. Seth reluctance to share and be vulnerable with the counselor makes her suggest that he write down his experiences with Jimmy. The scene gestures to the fact that American culture typically frowns on men showing any negative emotions other than rage—Seth does not feel free to cry about Jimmy’s death though this incredibly tragic event is deeply saddening.