Synopses & Reviews
14-year-old Ricky Hernandez is about to enter high school and wants a spot on the school baseball team. The problem is his wild pitching arm. He can throw super fast but he has no control over it. Just like he has no control over his ex-father who continues to barge in and steal what little money they have; nor his grandmothers fears of deportation; nor the rival pitcher who continually bullies him; nor his mothers deteriorating ill health. Ricky longs for some helpful tips from another pitcher, like a World Series pitcher and MVP Jack Langford, who just happens to live next door, but Jack wants to be left alone. In fact, all anybody ever sees are his feet at the bottom of the garage door which is always down.
However, Jack doesnt count on Maria Hernandez. She is a dynamo and will not take no for an answer, even if it means confronting a curmudgeon in his man-cave and forcing him into the light. Yet even with the MLB pitcher finally coaching him, Ricky cant seem to find his zone. And when his mothers health takes a turn for the worse nothing seems to matter anymore and certainly not some stupid baseball game. But Maria will not let him quit and from her hospital bed she encourages her son to prove himself and win. There is the obligatory “win this one for the coach” scene, but it rings true. And the ending is inspiring and joyful as any reader could wish.
Review
Publishers Weekly While ostensibly a contemporary baseball story, Hazelgroves expansive fifth novel also tackles issues of class, immigration law, and inequity. Thirteen-year-old Ricky Hernandez has a 75 mph pitch and dreams of making the freshman baseball team in Jacksonville, Fla., as the first step toward a professional career. Hes dyslexic, of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent, and is ceaselessly taunted by his peers, led by a kid named Eric with an inside track to making the team. While most of Rickys teammates can afford sports camp and private lessons, he and his mother are broke due to his abusive fathers lack of financial support and his mothers mounting medical bills. Despite her deteriorating health, she has loads of attitude, brains, and charm. She singlehandedly persuades their neighbor, The Pitcher, who played in the World Series, to set aside his beer, leave his garage, and coach Ricky.
Hazelgrove (Rocket Man) measures out a generous sprinkling of American idealism while weaving in legitimate threads of sorrow, employing the oft-usedbaseball metaphor to fresh and moving effect. Adult characters are particularly well-crafted, giving the book crossover potential. --Cevin Bryerman, Publisher / Vice President, www.publishersweekly.com
The Pitcher is a Junior Library Guild Selection
""Readers will be rooting for underdog Ricky every time he steps onto the mound and tries to control his wild pitch. With tense moments, unexpected twists, and a few humorous and joyful reprieves, Hazelgrove's writing reflects the dramatic arc of a baseball game. Will appeal to baseball players and fans, as well as anyone who has experienced the intensity of tryouts or a high-stakes game."" ---Junior Library Guild
School Library Journal Review of The Pitcher
""Ricky Hernandez has dreamed of pitching ever since, at nine years old, he astounded the grown-ups with his throwing speed at a carnival game. Now almost 14, hes still got the speed, but has never learned to control his pitches. His mom is his biggest fan, and she scrapes together enough for him to play on a youth league team and acts as its assistant coach. But in affluent Jacksonville, Florida, where the other rising freshmen attend elite sport camps and have personal coaches, Ricky and his mom know that he needs more if hes going to have any chance at the high school team. His reclusive neighbor is rumored to be Jack Langford, the winning pitcher of the 1978 World Series, so Maria begins her campaign to enlist him as Rickys coach, but the Pitcher wants no part of it. He has spent the years since his wife died holed up in his garage with beer and cigarettes and ESPN. But Maria is tenacious, and he agrees reluctantly to help her son. The beauty of this story is that there is no sudden epiphany for Ricky when the Pitcher steps in. Langford is impatient and intolerant and sometimes drinks too much. Ricky is used to struggling academically because he cant stay focused, and lets himself believe that this same lack of concentration is going to keep him from ever being a good pitcher. The other players pick up on his insecurities and use racial slurs to get under his skin at games. Hazelgrove is skilled at creating fully fleshed-out characters, and the dialogue carries the story along beautifully. While there is plenty of sports action, The Pitcher is ultimately about relationships, and the resolution and personal growth of the characters will appeal to a wide audience."" ---Kim Dare, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA
KIRKUS REVIEW
""Hazelgrove knits a host of social issues into a difficult but believable tale in which junior high---age Ricky has a gift: He can throw a mean fastball.
Although the story opens with triumph---young Ricky surprises and impresses a carnival barker with his pitching---success generally proves elusive for this son of undocumented immigrants. With an abusive, mostly absent father and racially motivated bullying by teammates and adults, its not just Rickys pitching in need of a change-up. His supportive, spitfire, Latina mother is seriously ill and without health insurance, his goal of making the high school team is increasingly unlikely, and the litany of obstacles appears otherwise unending. Class issues? Check. Dyslexia? You bet. But Rickys first-person voice is entertaining and unflinching; when a drunk, ex-pro pitcher offers surprising assistance, the youngster notes that “we are equipped to handle all the bad shit, you know. But good things are a little trickier.” Given the gritty portrayal of cant-catch-a-break lives and the cruelty and kindness of people young and old, sophisticated readers might balk at a somewhat implausible solution when Ricky is thrown one final curve before tryouts. But no one will really mind---this kid deserves a break.
An engaging, well-written sports story with plenty of human drama---this one is a solid hit.""
THE PITCHER is destined to become a classic. It is well-written, funny, heart-warming, engaging, easy to read, romantic and uplifting. On the surface this story may seem to be all about baseball and pitchers, but its more than that. THE PITCHER, a Junior Library Guild Selection, is about a loving and determined Hispanic mother who will endure anything and survive everything for the love of her child and his right to fulfill his dreams; its about overcoming prejudice and poverty; its about second chances; and most of all, its about learning to believe in yourself.
Latina Book Club http://www.latinabookclub.com
Synopsis
The Pitcher, is a classic story of baseball, the price of dreams, and the lessons of life. A mythic baseball story about a broken down World Series Pitcher is mourning over the death of his wife and an underprivileged Mexican-American boy who lives across the street and wants to learn to pitch. This is a mainstream contemporary novel about dreams lost and found. In the great tradition of books like, The Natural. This is a novel with the mythic themes, readability, and appeal to be a mainstream bestseller.
Synopsis
William Elliott Hazelgrove is the best selling author of four novels, Ripples, Tobacco Sticks, Mica Highways, and Rocket Man. His books have received starred reviews in Publisher Weekly, Book of the Month Selections, ALA Editors Choice Awards and optioned for the movies. He was the Ernest Hemingway Writer in Residence where he wrote in the attic of Ernest Hemingways birthplace. He has written articles and reviews for USA Today and other publications. His latest novel Rocket Man was chosen Book of the Year by Books and Authors.net. He has been the subject of interviews in NPRs All Things Considered along with features in The New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, Richmond Times Dispatch, USA Today, People, Channel 11, NBC, WBEZ, WGN. He runs a political cultural blog, The View From Hemingways Attic. The Pitcher is his fifth novel.
Synopsis
“I never knew I had an arm until this guy called out, “Hey you want to try and get a ball in the hole, sonny?” I was only nine, but mom said, “come on, lets play.” This Carney guy with no teeth and a fuming cigarette hands me five blue rubber balls and says if I throw three in the hole we win a prize. Hes grinning, because he took moms five bucks and figures a sucker is born every minute. That really got me, because we didnt have any money after Fernando took off, and he only comes back to beat up mom and steal our money. So I really wanted to get mom back something, you know, for her five bucks.”
A boy with a golden arm but no money for lessons. A mother who wants to give her son his dream before she dies. A broken down World Series pitcher who cannot go on after the death of his wife. These are the elements of The Pitcher. A story of a man at the end of his dream and a boy whose dream is to make his high school baseball team. In the tradition of The Natural and The Field of Dreams, this is a mythic story about how a man and a boy meet in the crossroads of their life and find a way to go on. You will laugh and you will cry as The Pitcher and Ricky prepare for the ultimate try out of life.
Synopsis
Chapter OnePitching just felt like the most natural thing in the world -- Babe Ruth
I never knew I had an arm until this guy called out, “Hey you want to try and get a ball in the hole, sonny?” I was only nine, but mom said, “come on, lets play.” This Carney guy with no teeth and a fuming cigarette hands me five blue rubber balls and says if I throw three in the hole we win a prize. Hes grinning, because he took moms five bucks and figures a sucker is born every minute. That really got me, because we didnt have any money after Fernando took off, and he only comes back to beat up mom and steal our money. So I really wanted to get mom back something, you know, for her five bucks.
I take the first rubber ball and throw it over my head and wham! The Carney guy looks at me and laughs. “Whoa! A Ringer. Lets see you do it again sonny.” Its like something happens when I throw a ball. My arm windmills over the top, then snaps down like a rubber band. Its like Im following my arm. So I throw the second ball and he mutters, “alright, lets see you get the next ball in.” I mean we are Mexicans, and I think this guy figured hed put one over on us.
I throw the next two balls and they go wild. I hit the top of the wood circle with one and the other one flies completely over the game. The carnie guy is grinning again, because he knows I have only one more ball. I wind up like I had seen pitchers on television and wham, right in the hole again. He hands mom a big white Polar Bear and takes the cigarette from his mouth.
“That looked like a sixty mile an hour pitch to me,” he says.
“I dont know,” I reply, shrugging.
He nods and picks up the rubber balls.
“You should pitch, buddy,” he says with one eye closed.” You have a hell of an arm.”
I felt good about that, but I had never known a pitcher, except for the guy across the street who lives in his garage. When my friends come over we lie on his driveway listening to ball games like the ocean in the dark. Sometimes wed listen to the Cubs and my man Zambrano on the mound. It was cool laying on his drive in the Florida night listening to the game, because he pitched in a World Series. He won the 1978 Series against Bob Gibson. You can check it out on YouTube.
Joey likes to throw stuff under the garage and have his dog come out. The pitcher has this chocolate Labrador, Shortstop, who sleeps on his drive when he opens his garage. Thats the thing; he never opens his garage all the way. You can see his white ankles and hear the game, but you never see the dude. Wed throw all sorts of stuff under his garage; rocks, sticks, oranges. Sometimes wed sneak up and roll an egg under there. The dog ate the eggs and oranges which really killed us. Joey and I figured he was a drunk, because his garbage can was full of this beer called, Good Times. Dude…who sits in a garage and drinks beer called, Good Times?
Anyway, we ended up playing ball in front of his house. Joey said I had the fastest arm hed ever seen and that made me feel good. Im not so good at other things, like school, because I can-not-focus and I give the teachers hell. Everything buzzes right over my head. Mom says Im…well I dont like to say it because it bothers the hell out of me. Lets just say reading is hard for me because the words jump around. So we go to these teacher conferences where mom loses it. Shes half Puerto Rican and charges in there in her Target uniform and wants to know why the hell isnt anybody helping me?
So when I found out I had an arm, I was like, wow, Im good at something. A man at the police station timed me with a radar gun and all the cops crowded around. They had me throw a baseball five times and just shook their heads. That guy at the carnival was wrong about pitching sixty miles an hour, because the little numbers flashed 74 and 77. So after the cops timed me, we scraped up the money to join a travel team. You get a uniform with a couple different jerseys. A lot of people send their kids to camps and these baseball clinics, but not us. We ended up in our neighborhood when Fernando was working, but mom says were just hanging on now.
“Come on, bring it Hernandez!” Joey shouts down the street.
He squats down in front of the pitchers house and beats his mitt. I bring the heat and sometimes I hit his glove, but its like I have this rocket with no guidance. I try to control my pitching, but when I draw back this wild beast zings the ball through the air at seventy plus. The thing is I dont have a changeup. A good changeup comes in like a fastball, but about fifteen miles slower. But with me its all about heat. I only know one way to throw and sometimes Joey grabs it, but most of the time he chases it down the street. But heres my play. If I keep throwing in the street, maybe the pitcher will come out. You know, just tell me how you control a pitch, because, really, I have no idea.
So one day Im batting the ball in the street with Joey. Its one of those super-hot days in Florida where you just want to hide in the air-conditioning all day. The street is so hot we can feel it through our tennis shoes. I smack a low grounder to Joey that hits a station wagon, then shoots past Shortstop and under the pitchers garage. Thats what we called him, the pitcher, because thats what Joeys dad called him when he told us he won the Series. Joeys dad said he thought he was in his late fifties. I guess thats pretty old, because mom is her thirties and that seems old.
“That ball is gone bro,” Joey says, shaking his head.
I stare at the dark opening and can hear a ballgame.
“Im getting it,” I tell him, walking toward the garage.
“Youre crazy man!” He shouts. “Hes going to go psycho on you man.”
I was scared, but it was our last baseball. I‘m almost to the garage when the door starts clanking up. Joey bolts across the street and I turn to run when I see our ball in the middle of the cement floor. Its just sitting there like a snowball in the darkness. But Im staring now because theres a bed, a refrigerator, a desk, a lamp, and the television with a game on real low. Cans of Skoal surround a La-Z-Boy like green buoys next to a pyramid of Good Times beer. Theres even a microwave with beans and spaghetti stacked on a board over a slop sink.
“What the F--,” Joey says, looking at me.
Mom says I cant use the Fbomb, so I have to abbreviate. Anyway, like I said, none of us had ever seen the pitcher before, but we didnt think he had his bed in the garage. We assumed he just hung out there to watch his games.
“I aint going in there,” he declares, shaking his head. He looks at me with his big dark Mexican eyes and shaved head. We had both shaved our heads against the heat and in our white T shirts we looked like brothers. Except Joey is older than me; everybody is older than me. I turn fourteen in September. Mom always said she should have held me back. I dont know man; I would have felt pretty stupid in seventh grade instead of cruising toward high school.
“Im getting it,” I mutter, taking a step toward the garage.
Joeys eyes turned into fireballs. “You go in there and that dude is going to grab your ass!”
Maybe the pitcher was setting a trap, but I wanted our baseball. So I walked in. There was some old ratty fan whirring in the corner. The garage smelled like dirty socks and cigarettes. The television murmured…full count. Baltimore ahead by three… I turned back to Joey in a patch of sun. He looked like he was a million miles away.
“Grab the ball and run bro…get out of there man,” he whispers, his eyes large.
I walked further into the garage with my heart slamming against my chest. Cigarettes are stubbed in cans, on paper plates, even on the floor. The Skoal cans look like those designs aliens do in the deserts. I reach our baseball and take another step, then stop. The pitcher is on the mound in his windup. Then he has a bat over his shoulder looking like one of those All American guys on baseball cards. Then the dugout pictures with one leg up, standing with other ball players. Im staring at these faded pictures tacked on the wall of the garage while the baseball game plays on. Some of the pictures are black and white and some are color, but this is my dream, you know. I want to make the high school baseball team in the fall, and one day, I want to pitch for the Chicago Cubs in Wrigley Field.
We used to live in Chicago and mom says you can do anything if you believe it enough. I believe I can make the high school team—although only thirty guys make the freshman team out of one hundred. Travel ball ends after eighth grade, so you got to make it or you just disappear. Guys have been training for years to make the team with lessons and camps and personal trainers. Everyone knows high school ball is the cutoff. And for me to get to Wrigley, I need to make the high school team first.
I keep walking along the wall between the rakes, brooms, shovels, and I cant take my eyes off the pictures. The pitcher is looking sideways, one leg up, his body pivoted, with the ball cocked back. I wonder then, if he feels the way writers and painters talk sometimes--like you arent even there. Thats how I feel when I pitch; its like I wake up when I hear the ball smack the catchers mitt.
“Get the ball!” Joey calls in this loud whisper, taking another step the street.
I turn back to the wall and stare at this one black and white picture. The pitcher is jumping into the arms of his catcher with his legs up. The catcher has his mask off and he has his mouth open and the pitcher is yelling to the sky. He had just won the World Series against the Cardinals. The World Series. I lean close, hearing the fan, the ballgame, the heat, trying to see what he was thinking as he jumped into his catchers arms.
“Cmon Hernandez!” Joey yells, standing in the middle of the street.
I leave the wall and step over the Skoal and walk past the pyramid of Good Times cans and pick up our baseball. Then I turn and walk real fast out into the sunshine. And thats when the garage starts rolling down. Joey bolts and runs down the street and I whip around, thinking the pitcher is behind me with my heart bam bam baming. The garage rolls down, then goes back up a third, and then just stops. And the dog, he just groans and rolls over like nothing ever happened. And the ball game gets turned back up, like it never stopped.
About the Author
William Hazelgrove is the best-selling author of five novels, including THE PITCHER, a Junior Library Guild Selection. He was the Ernest Hemingway Writer in Residence, where he wrote in the attic of Ernest Hemingway's birthplace. He has written articles and reviews for USA Today and other publications. He has been the subject of interviews in NPR'sAll Things Considered along with features in The New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, Richmond Times Dispatch, USA Today, People, Channel 11, NBC, WBEZ, WGN. A follow up novel, REAL SANTA, will be out fall of 2014. Hazelgrove runs a political cultural blog, The View From Hemingway's Attic. Visit him athttp://www.williamhazelgrove.com.