Heart of a Champion

Seth’s schoolwork has improved now that he is in the eighth grade. He attributes it to Jimmy, because Jimmy taught him how to concentrate. He started focusing when playing baseball and now concentrates in the classroom as well.

Seth loves to read baseball books and make book reports about them. They show him that great baseball players were not all alike: The only thing they had in common was natural talent. Seth believes that to be great, one has to have natural ability. Talent cannot be acquired: “You can screw up and waste it. But if you don’t have it in the first place, there’s nothing you can do to get it. Nothing” (55).

One evening, Jimmy calls Seth to ask him if he would like to play on the Belmont Braves, an outstanding team in Jimmy’s new neighborhood. Seth lives outside of the Braves’ geographical district. Jimmy tries to convince him that it would be okay to use Jimmy’s grandparents’ address as Seth’s, breaking the rules to play on that team. However, Seth’s mother points out that this would be cheating, something his father would never have tolerated. Seth tells Jimmy that his mother will not allow him to do and Jimmy curses Seth’s mother. Seth says he cannot forget that phone call, even now when he is writing the book three years after it happened.

Seth signs up for his first year of high school classes. Instead of going to a Catholic high school, he is going to Woodside, a public school. He is qualified to sign up for an honors program, but he is afraid to take those classes, believing he will fail. The counselor sends two different class schedules home with him: an honors one and a basic one. Seth waits almost until bedtime to talk it over with his mother. She wants him to take the honors classes but believes it must be his decision. He first chooses the easier classes, but then wakes up in the middle of the night, realizing he must take the honors classes to be consistent with the new person he has become since Jimmy came into his life.

This one-page chapter shows a difficult baseball season for Seth. While he is striving to become a better ball player, he has no one to help him learn: “Figuring things out on my own made for a slow going” (61).

Seth’s team, the Redwood City Reds, plays Jimmy’s team, the Belmont Braves. Seth arrives two hours early to find Jimmy hitting balls off a batting T. They play catch, wordlessly becoming reacquainted.

Late in the game, Jimmy gets on first base. The next batter hits the ball to Seth, who tosses it to Brad Comin at second base. Jimmy slides into Comin and dislocates his knee. Comin leaves in an ambulance. Seth visits Comin in the hospital and discovers that Jimmy had also come to see him. Comin says, “He said he was sorry, but then he told me I shouldn’t have been on the bag” (66). Because Seth never sees Brad Comin again, he is haunted by the fear that the injury permanently ended his ability to play baseball. 

At Woodside, Seth’s honors classes involve more work but are not terribly difficult. He maintains high grades. He really looks forward to baseball season. The freshman team has a new coach, Rick Sharront, who played briefly for the Cleveland Indians. Sharront has a deep love and a profound understanding of the game, and he is disappointed that he did not stay longer in the major leagues. The first day, after two hours of practice, Sharront makes the team run two miles, running with them and finishing ahead of all the boys.

Sharront is extremely energetic and invests himself in getting the team prepared for every aspect of the game. While he is just as passionate about the game as Mr. Winter, his attitude is very different: “He screamed all the time, but he wasn’t one of the hard-nosed drill sergeant types. When Sharront yelled, it was a happy yell—if that makes sense” (71). He ends each practice with a two-mile run.

One of the team members, Todd Franks, ridicules the coach to the other players. Todd refuses to invest in the practices when he is not being observed.

During the team’s first game, Seth is glad to be starting at second base but angry that he is batting eighth. The team gets an early lead, but then, the Reds’ starting pitcher gives up one hit after another. They give up 16 runs and lose.

As he is walking home, Seth sees a rapidly driving car strike a cocker spaniel. He comforts the dog as it dies and then explains to the dog’s owners what happened. The event makes him think about his father, who died alone. Seth muses, “I wished that someone, even a stranger, had been with him when he died” (77). That evening, he does not tell his mother about the dog, but she senses that something is troubling him. He believes his mother often thinks of his father as well.

In the first half of the baseball season, Seth’s team loses eight straight games. Seth has climbed up to second in the batting order. After the first few losses, team morale falls: “the thing about losing is that you start to expect things to go wrong, and when you expect bad things to happen, they do” (79).

In the ninth game, the team rallies. With bases loaded, Todd hits a deep drive that allows the three on base to score. As Todd rounds third, Sharront gives him the stop sign, but Todd charges home and scores by slamming into the catcher. Sharront takes Todd out of the game for ignoring the sign. After the game, Todd confronts the coach, saying he is the best player on the team. Sharront replies, “We’ve lost every game with you. We can’t do any worse without you” (81). Todd quits the team, which does not bother the coach.

Seth walks home struggling with his emotions, grateful that Todd was confronted but fearful about the team’s prospects.

He is surprised to find Jimmy sitting in his living room. Jimmy and his mom are moving back into his old house. Jimmy will immediately start attending Woodside. Seth walks part way home with Jimmy after dark and asks about Mr. Winters. While Jimmy’s mom still hopes that Mr. Winters will stop drinking, get counseling, and rebuild their relationship, Jimmy hopes his father will move away so he never has to see him again.

On Jimmy’s first day at Woodside, Seth tells him about the horrible baseball season. Jimmy eventually asks if he can get on the baseball team. Jimmy tries out and gets Todd’s old uniform. Sharront wants to change some things about what Jimmy is doing. Jimmy practices for the first time with the team and is obviously trying a lot harder than everybody else, which many of the players find irritating.

In the final two-mile race that the coach always wins, Jimmy catches up with the coach and passes him. All the kids surround him, slap him on the back, and cheer: This is the first time any student has beaten Sharront. Seth enthuses, “I don’t think I knew how much Sharront’s victories were eating at me until Jimmy put an end to them. It was as if we were all living in someone’s shadow. Jimmy brought us into the light” (86).

Jimmy becomes the de factor leader of the team. All the players welcome the energy he brings and the example he sets.

The team plays a Saturday morning game. The players are all excited and quickly take the lead. They copy Jimmy’s chatter in the infield. As the game drags on, Woodside clings to a small lead. Seth scores a run in the late innings that puts Woodside ahead. In their opponent’s last at-bat, a line drive strikes Jimmy right in the throat and knocks him down. Even though he’s woozy and obviously hurting, Jimmy works with Seth to turn a double play and Woodside gets their first win.

The monkey is now off the team’s back now that they have won a game. The team proceeds to win their next three games by close scores.

Seth says that Jimmy has the heart of a champion. Jimmy’s spirit is contagious. Now everybody is playing harder and smarter and giving themselves to the game.

One day, as they walk home from school, Mr. Winter pulls up alongside them in his car with a new girlfriend who is even younger than his first girlfriend. He offers the boys a ride home, which they refuse. Jimmy says Seth is lucky that is father is dead because at least he knows what to expect. With Mr. Winter, Jimmy never knows what to expect. Seth ruminates on the loss of his father.

The rumor spreads that Sharront is going to become the varsity coach at the end of the year. Todd Franks asks the coach to rejoin the team and the coach welcomes him. During the first practice, Jimmy makes it clear that he’s the team leader by telling Todd to hustle. After that, Todd hustles just like the rest of the guys.

The team does well for the rest of the season. In a game against first-place Saint Francis, Jimmy and Seth recognize the pitcher—it’s Steve Cannon, who was the first outstanding pitcher Seth had faced. If Seth’s team wins, they could go to the playoffs, even with their losing record. With two strikes, Seth times his swing to hit a fastball. However, the pitcher throws him a changeup. Seth swings too early and falls down. Jimmy picks him up and tells him not to worry about it because Cannon resorted to trickery: “Cannon is the one who backed down” (98).

Todd invites Jimmy and Seth to come to his house for a party Saturday evening. They’re reluctant to go, but Todd pressures them into it. Seth and Jimmy end up at Todd’s house along with a couple of other players on the team. Todd’s room is like a guest house, complete with a stereo, TV, and pool table. Todd challenges Jimmy to a game of pool—if he wins, Jimmy has to drink a beer. They all end up drinking beer.

Seth and Jimmy catch the last bus back to their neighborhood. Seth is sick when he goes to bed that evening. He is grateful not to encounter his mother and to get away with it: “The whole morning I lived in dread that everything would blow up in my face. But it didn’t. Nothing happened” (99). He goes to the baseball field and sees Jimmy, but neither one of them feels like playing.

Jimmy takes Todd and Seth with him to a batting cage they can use at will. Throughout June they use the machine to hit balls at 70 miles per hour (mph). In July they increase the speed to 75 and 80 mph. Seth is frustrated that while he can only hit a 75-mph pitch, Jimmy and Todd can hit faster ones. 

When sophomore year starts, Sharront is now the varsity coach. The three friends believe they have a shot at making the varsity team. Baseball season dominates Seth’s thoughts, and he is primarily waiting for the fall semester to end. Todd regularly procures beer, and the boys always drink it when it is available. They manage, sometimes just barely, to avoid their parents finding out they are drinking.

Mr. Winter starts showing up on Saturday and Sunday mornings to play baseball with Jimmy and Seth. Jimmy clearly does not want him around. Seth tries to make up for it by being especially pleasant, which only irritates Jimmy.

When he talks the situation over with his mother, she tells him he does not know what Jimmy might have gone through: “Once alcohol gets a grip on a person, it’s tough to shake free. Ever” (104). Her comment surprises Seth, who takes it almost as an accusation. At school, Seth takes Jimmy aside and points out the hypocrisy of resenting Mr. Winters for drinking when they also are drinking. Jimmy replies, “What we’re doing isn’t anything like what he did” (105). Jimmy and Seth continue to go to Todd’s house and drink beer on Saturday evenings.

At baseball tryouts, Seth worries that his batting is not sufficient to make varsity. He’s right: Sharront moves several players including Seth to the junior varsity team.

Jimmy tells Seth that his father is moving to San Francisco and will probably marry his new girlfriend. Jimmy asks Seth if his mother would ever remarry. Seth is jarred by the question and insists it would never happen. But later, he realizes it would make perfect sense for his mother to remarry: “My mother was smart and she was pretty. She’d have no trouble meeting some man who’d want to marry her” (108-09). Seth struggles with the idea of another man moving into their house.