The Real End to The Natural

Just finished The Natural again. And there was that ending again. The Bernard Malamud ending that is not like Hollywood. The exact opposite in fact. Roy Hobbs takes the payoff and misses the final pitch and strikes out. He does tell the judge and Memo and the bookie to go where the sun doesn't shine but he is a broken man in the end with no future...just another drifter in Depression era America.

And the book is different in that it is really a treatment of baseball during The Great Depression. The Natural with Robert Redford is a much more upbeat tale of a pitcher who gets knocked off by a woman who shoots him early in his career. Years later he comes up but he is much older with only a few good seasons in him.

But the real difference lies in the ending. In the novel the natural does not pull it out. He simply cant get his mojo back and when he strikes out he is accused of being in on the fix and there are people who want to ban him from baseball. But Roy Hobbs has banned himself as he becomes just another person in Depression era America.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher

Why Our National Past Time Just Isn't The Same

The NY Times had a recent article about our National Past Time becoming less releavant. Seems people  just don't watch baseball anymore like they used to. They go to the games but they don't watch on television as much. Something is up in Mudville. Could it be the doping scandals where one big hitter falls after another. Or as the Times speculates is there something else going on. Could it be we are changing.

Baseball used to a sport of action back in the nineteenth century. It was considered a very exciting sport. One that rivaled the American spirit for settling the country. But now it is our past time. Our kickback sport. Problem is we as a people don't really  kick back anymore. Football is our sport now. Something violent. Something dangerous. Something unpredicatable. Baseball is none of these things. Baseball is a conservative sport played by conservative men. A long drawn out game of chess that flares up and then goes back to sleep.

But we are not a sleepy people. We just don't have the time to kick back and watch men bat a ball around and trot around bases. We want to see gladiators who knock each other senseless. We want to see men literally try and knock each other out. And we crave more. We may have outgrown our own national sport. Our life moves at nanosecond speed now and we have not a moment to lose. We literally don't have time to eat anymore much less watch a slow game of baseball.

So to take a day and sit back and have a beer and watch men in the summer knock a ball around. I don't know. Sounds pretty nineteenth century to me....sounds pretty nice.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher
 

What Mothers Wont Do For Their Sons

I wrote a baseball novel but it is a different type of baseball novel. It is about a mother who has a dream for her son to make the baseball team and she does this by becoming his coach. And then when she cant coach him any further she gets a broken down World Series Pitcher to help him. And she does all this with Lupus. And she never gives up .Ever.

And I based it on my own wife and other mothers I had seen where they will do anything for their sons. Anything. And it was confirmed with the reviews that have come in from mothers. I originally thought this would be testosterone novel with boys and men as the primary audience. But it is not really men that are reading this book as much as women. The reviews are mostly by women and they respond to the Maria character and what she wont do for her son Ricky.

All good fiction deals in universals and this must be one of them. A mothers love that knows no bounds when it comes to her son. A mother who becomes a coach and then gets a reluctant old grouchy pitcher to come out of his garage and quit drinking beer and coach her son. It is an amazing testatment to will. The will of a mother.

Review of The Pitcher

A Night at Wrigley

You get there and of course you need a hotdog and a beer. The best stand has the grilled onions and there is a line but you wait. The Budweiser is cold and tastes like ballpark beer...slightly metallic. A bag of peanuts and now you are on your way. The Cubs have not been doing so well so your thirteen dollar tickets are no longer relevant. There are many places to sit and no need to go into the nosebleed sections. So you plop down along the third base line and watch the Cubs warm up.

The rain has blown off and the sky has cleared and it is blue toward the lake. The honor guard is lining up for the National Anthem and the players have their hats off as some guy belts out the Star Spangled Banner. And he really lets it all fly on the final verse and everyone goes nuts and then you sit down and someone shouts: Play BALL. So you finish your hotdog and drink your beer and start cracking peanuts as the Cubs look like they might actually beat the Brewers.

There are some Brewers fans around you who are mostly quiet in the sea of Cub jerseys. And you pick out the lifers the ones who live in the city around the stadium. And the guys who sell the hotdogs and beers and are probably pushing sixty. Everyone in the park is an amazing testament to the national pastime to the old ladies in their Cub hats and the solitary fan scoring quietly by himself to the young girls in the tight Cub tank tops.

And the rain comes and they stop the game and you watch them roll out the tarp. An amazing orchestrated ballet really. And you sit there with everyone for an hour and watch the rain and lightning but you don't care. You are sitting in the middle of the greatest city in the world in one of the last great old ball parks. And the rain does stop and the players hit the field. Seventh Inning stretch comes and you sing with  thousands of other people Take Me Out to The Ball Park.

And then it is over and you are on the train headed back out. The Cub Fans are rowdy and then asleep and everyone is winding down. The rain has come back as you leave the train and walk toward your car. And you think, sometimes...life does deliver.

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