The story of a Mexican American boy with a golden arm and a broken down World Series Pitcher who coaches him to make the highschool team.
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
Excerpt
I never knew I had an arm until this guy calls out, "Hey you want to try and get a ball in the hole sonny?"
Professional Reviews
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, it's not just Ricky's 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 Ricky's 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 can't-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.
Kirkus Reviews
Junior Library Guild
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
Top Amazon Reviewer
William Hazelgrove continues to `bat a thousand' with this, his latest impressive novel, THE PITCHER. He so very well understands a child's point of view and the adult response and all the friction, love, agony, passion, and joy and disappointment that the interaction between these apparent poles implies. He has the gift of writing honestly and with utter conviction about relationships between youngsters and adults, showing us the true proximity between the nascent mind yearning for the seasoning of the adult and the polar end of the adult who dreams of the innocence of childhood. He makes it magical, he makes is real, he makes it immensely satisfying to read.
Hazelgrove takes on a new topic in this book - the immigration and education and conflicts that face the Hispanic population in this country, acknowledging the racial prejudices from both sides of that too high border, and yet dealing with those issues with the same sensitivity that propels all the stories of his novels. This is a timely book that embraces America's favorite pastime (baseball), the struggle of Mexican families both from within and from the outside, the shell of once famous people who lose career and loved ones and bury themselves in attempting to forget by what ever measures, the shaky strength of single parent households, and the germ of following dreams to their promise of success.
Very briefly, THE PITCHER relates the tale of a young Mexican lad who has the gift of a pitcher's arm, but seems unable to achieve entry into the high school level baseball team because of his questionable legal status of immigration. His mother, stricken with lupus erythematosis, is determined to help her son become a famous baseball player, knowng that he needs professional coaching, and after much negotiation engages the mysterious old ex-pitcher across the street - a man of great fame who lives in his garage unable to recover from his ended career and the loss of his wife. How the drive of the boy, the even stronger motivation of the mother, and the gradual coming out of his shell of the Pitcher meet to achieve resolution of their dreams and create a transformation of their lives is the theme that plays well to the last page.
William Hazelgrove continues to entertain and inspire with each new book. He has that ability to see the intricacies of human interaction and express them in a way that makes his ideas and the telling of those ideas completely visible. Grady Harp, August 13
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