Because it's the World Series....Sports Rack Review of The Pitcher

So, have you ever had a dream?  That’s a question that every person is asked time and time again.  Do you have a dream.  If you’re Ricky Hernandez, your dream is the same dream as everyone else.  He wants to be the American Dream.  A kid from nothing that turns into something.
“The Pitcher” is a book about dreams.  The dreams of kids.  The dreams of parents.  The dreams of immigrants.  The dreams of a man who’s lived the dream.  And it’s all brought together in the mind of William Hazelgrove.  After the cut, find out how.

“The Pitcher” by William Hazelgrove
Published by Koehler Books
Release Date: September 1, 2013
Pages: 242 (Kindle Edition)

As you can see from the picture, the Junior Library Guild has selected this book as a must read.  And it really is.  And so, let’s put myself into Ricky’s shoes, shall we?  I am a 3rd generation Mexican American, as is Ricky.  My family isn’t from this country, and my grandmother came to this country to find a better way of life, as did Ricky’s.  And as a Mexican American, imagine the scrutiny faced by a culture that is xenophobic.
Ricky’s constantly in the bottom of the 9th with nobody out in this expertly crafted story.  His mother is dying.  His father is worthless.  He wants to be a pitcher, just to fulfil his mother’s wishes.  But his mother cannot afford the lessons needed.  Hence, comes in the surprise character, nicknamed “The Pitcher.”  A down and out former MLB pitcher who was a World Series MVP.  A man trying to forget squandering his dream.
In this story, Ricky and The Pitcher come parallel.  Two people who aren’t interested in school or life.  All they want is the game.  All while dealing with Mrs. Payne, the representation of that Tea Party mom and Sports Mom who drives us nuts.  Coach Devin, her seemingly spineless husband.  And their “perfect” son named Eric, who represents that “perfect” kid willing to step on everyone on his way to the top.
From the opening pitch in Ricky’s life to his final triumphs, William takes you on a journey that you’ve been on before.  The journey of love, doubt, and self-searching.  All through the eyes of a Mexican boy who thinks the world is against him.
So, get ready to root for the underdog in a social and sometimes political commentary of the kid’s journey.  Kids will pick up the theme of beating the odds.  Adults should pick up the underlying themes of our xenophobic nature.  Everyone should be rooting for Ricky.
William Hazelgrove weaved this book together with mastery, and you should pre-order this now from Amazon.  It’s available for $11.56 USD, so definitely put in your order and get ready for one heck of a baseball story.  Like my last pre-release, this one is a love book, folks.  And that doesn’t happen often.
Cheers, Mr. Hazelgrove.  I’m rooting for this book to make it, too.
The Pitcher

The Best Years

They go fast. One day you are putting the ball on the T and then the next you are driving home from a high school game that is your sons last. In between are a million games played in dusty hot fields with your son while you as the assistant coach get to go along for the ride. And you don't know that much about baseball but nine years later you know it all. Because you have been there all along as your son learns the game and then became good and then became talented and then finds out that talent has limits too.

And you have gone to McDonald's a hundred times. You have gone to Dairy Queen a hundred times but that is all over now. No longer do you savor the games won and lament the games lost. No longer do you discuss the game with the other dad coaches and replay the dramas as you coach first or second or you call the game from the dugout. No longer are you discussing the game driving home in the twilight or better still finding yourself still there in the parking lot with your son talking it over as the sun rims the trees.

Because he has grown up and college is not far away and baseball games are no longer. You no longer have bats and balls and hats and gloves in the back of your car. You no longer have field dust on your shoes and all over your seats. That now belongs to memories. And occasionally you find yourself driving past the old ball fields. They are empty now and it is getting toward winter. And you slow just a little and feel the old tug.

And you know then...those were the best years.

The Pitcher


 

Interview with Seattle Intelligencer on The Pitcher

William Hazelgrove's earlier-released novel, Rocket Man, was a seriocomic look at the angst of suburban life. His new novel, The Pitcher, has just been released.
Your earlier novel Rocket Man was a harshly cynical look at life in suburbia. What made you decide to write about that?
When I moved to the suburbs from the city, I looked around and saw no one was really making it. In fact, people were not even keeping up, and houses were falling into foreclosure. This led me to question the whole concept of the American Dream and how only a few can attain it. So I took this character Dale Hammer and made him an everyman for each person who goes for it with the house and the kids and the dogs. And of course, he cannot keep up, but he does find a resolution at the end.
Rocket Man reminded me of the works of Richard Ford, author of The Sportswriter and Independence Day. Ford has resisted efforts to compare him with other great writers by stating, "You can't write. on the strength of influence. You can only write a good story or a good novel by yourself." Do you agree?

Ads by Google

• Get a Free AudiobookDownload a Free Audiobook. Start your 30-day Free Trial today! audible.com
• New Laptop from GoogleIntroducing Chromebook. Boots in seconds. Virus protection built-in. google.com/chromebook

Yes. You have to write with your own vision, but I must say I was influenced by Ford and Russo. Both men take a hard look at the American landscape and see its dips and crevices and all the pitfalls built into our middleclass culture. When you sit down to write though it is only you and your voice.
Rocket Man started out as quite humorous but then turned more serious as it went along. Was this intended, or did the story simply play itself out in this fashion?
It began as a lark and the voice was just rolling but then the book took on bigger themes. I didn't really intend that to happen but I just follow where the story takes me and that is what happens to Dale. Ultimately he has to decide if his life is authentic and if it is not, what he is he willing to do about it.
Would you provide us with a brief synopsis of The Pitcher?
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 Field of Dreams, this is a mythic story about how a man and a boy meet in the crossroads of their lives and find a way to go on.
You are not Hispanic, so how is it that you decided to make the protagonist of The Pitcher a Mexican-American teenager?
I am not Hispanic, but I have gone through hard times and I know what it is to hang by your fingertips where everything can fall apart at a moment's notice and the odds are stacked against you. That is really the character of Ricky. Also, I have written novels about African Americans in the South, and it is the same thing. Once you have the voice you have the story.
Have you had experience with playing sports in general or baseball in particular?
I participated in football, wrestling and track in high school. The baseball knowledge came from coaching my son who was a pitcher.
Do you concur with the notion that one's essential nature is demonstrated while playing sports?
Yes. I think you are tested on the field in ways that squeeze out every emotion you have. And certainly the person you are comes through.
Ricky and his mother are discriminated against in their community because of their ethnicity and poverty. Did you draw on personal experiences in writing about this?
I used the racism I see and read about in everyday life. It is not hard to imagine being a minority in this country because every day we see what happens to people who are discriminated against.
In the novel, the protagonist Ricky states that, ".we are equipped to handle all the bad (stuff), you know. But good things are a little trickier." This reminded me of Truman Capote's view that more lives may have been ruined by answered dreams than unanswered ones. Could this be true?
Yes. I think when you are struggling you go one day at a time. When suddenly you can breathe, you look around and evaluate where you are. In a way the struggle keeps you protected.
In The Pitcher, a former pro baseball hero decides to help Ricky, whose dream is a relatively humble one. You novel seems to affirm that a personal dream or goal is essential. But is there a danger when people, young or otherwise, attach themselves to goals that will not come to fruition?
The tragedy is if you don't dream big. Failure is inevitable for everyone, but for you that doesn't mean you should not dream or go for it. Just strap on your backpack and run as fast as you can. You never want to say you did not try.
View the original article on blogcritics.org

The Reality of High School Sports

You go along like I did as an assistant coach starting in T Ball. And then you move along through the In House Leagues. The playing gets more intense and more fun. The kids are starting to know what they are doing and talent springs eternal and you start to think your kid really has something. There are the standouts. The kids who in sixth grade are pounding the ball into the outfield. And then there are the kids who can pitch and have a fastball that freezes kids at the plate. All of this is with Dad Coaches and the parents are way into the games now and people scream because they are glimmering something bigger. High School ball.

And then it happens. Everyone troops off in the ninth grade and the numbers move in along with a reality that just seems so unfair. The majority of kids who have been playing baseball for nine years will not play anymore. They will either not make the team or they will make the team and sit on the bench. The chosen few continue on in high school but for most kids it is the end of playing sports. How did it come to this?

Too many people. The large high schools of the Chicago land area are a good example. The level of competition is such that only the very best of the best get to play. The influence of personal coaching and high priced sports clinics and programs. The parents who shell out the heavy duty cash just have a better chance of seeing their kids play in high school. Maybe it starts with the mentality of travel ball where kids wear uniforms like major leagues and parents again shell out thousands for the best teams.

So the reality of high school sports is that for most kids is marks the end of playing not the beginning. Gone are the days when everyone could get a chance to play. That belongs to a time when there just weren't as many people.

The Pitcher...sometimes a dream is all you have



 

The Madness or what Happened to Kid Sports?

Used to be you just played baseball or soccer of football. There was Little League and Pony League and the Majors but after that you played for a school. If you are a parent then you know what has come to fill in the gap for the passionate sport parent who doesn't get enough time with their child. The Travel Sports. Question. What cost about two thousand dollars, sucks up half the year, and puts you in the same league with every man who did not get his fill of high school or college sports or worse yet believed he was overlooked as a possible major league contender?These overgrown athletes can find succor in the twisted halls of Travel Sports.

I love spending time with my kids and I coached for seven years, but the fun, the joy of a child playing sports was sucked right out when we entered the realm of Travel Baseball. Suddenly there was no joy in Mudville. Win or lose the games had become deadly serious. Parents agonized over defeats and critiqued the wins. Coaches screamed and hollered over calls and boys of twelve were reduced to tears after coaches benched them for an error or a loss where the boys shamed themselves. Its all so overblown and out of line that we have to wonder who started this madness of sham professional athletics for boys and girls.

Only our times could generate the kind of entitlement that would translate to grown men wearing custom made uniforms and traveling thousands of miles to have twelve years old play a game I used to play in the streets. Times change. Yes Yes Yes...everyone plays travel now. But that kind of major league competition does not produce games where kids can learn. It produces neurotic parents juiced on winning at any cost and children who learn less about the game and more about parents funneling every bit of sublimated stress into a game that should be on par with playing catch in the backyard.

But we live in a time when everything is overblown. So it is not surprising that kids sports are the latest casualty of the generation that produced helicopter parents and the self satisfying mantra of hope I die before I get old. So to everyone who thinks I know nothing of the joys of organized travel sports and the excellence that can come from intense competition and the bonding that occurs when groups of parents and their children travel thousands of miles together to arrive at some field in some distant city--I say,as my father told me long ago when I lost in Little League--it is only a game. Lighten up guys.

The Pitcher...sometimes a dream is all you have
www.williamhazelgrove.com