Heart of a Champion

During the second game, the team’s sophomore pitcher is having a bad day. Woodside is down 6-2 when a reliever pitcher is subbed in. The team manages to pull to within a single run before their last at bat. Seth ends up at bat with two on base and two outs. He gets a hit, and the team wins 7-6. His teammates treat him like a hero. Jimmy tells him that there is going to be a celebration that night, meaning drinking. At first Seth is excited, but then becomes afraid they will be discovered and kicked off the team. He also remembers the promise he made to his mom. He tries to talk Jimmy into doing something different. Jimmy, to appease him, says he has decided to stay home.

Seth asks his mother if she will ever remarry. She says she will not until after he leaves home. He thanks her.

The third game is a blowout, with Woodside winning 14-2. The fourth game puts Alex, the wild sophomore pitcher, back on the mound. He seems ill but manages to pitch the team to victory. Afterward Todd tells Seth that Alex and Jimmy are both hungover: “Jimmy’s found some hole-in-the-wall grocery where he can buy beer. He’s been hounding guys to go drinking with him” (152). Todd asks Seth to talk to Jimmy, since Seth is the one person to whom Jimmy might listen. Seth finds this ironic since Todd introduced them to drinking, but realizes Todd is right.

Knowing he should confront Jimmy about his drinking, Seth procrastinates. Todd asks him twice if he has spoken to Jimmy and warns him that things are going to “explode in his face” (153). Seth’s reluctance is fueled by the team’s excellent play. They blow out their next two opponents with Jimmy leading the way. Seth’s says, “When a guy is hitting .550, it’s tough to tell him he’s screwing up the team” (154). Todd is the only one on the team who is slumping.

After a seemingly good team practice, Todd outruns Sharront in the regular two-mile run. In the locker room, he confronts Jimmy, asking if he is hungover. Jimmy responds that Todd can no longer hit. Todd punches Jimmy and two other players break up their fight.

The evening after the fight, Seth goes to Jimmy’s house and the two go out for pizza. Seth finally gets around to confronting Jimmy about drinking. Jimmy quickly shuts down the discussion, telling Seth to mind his own business.

Todd shows up at baseball practice with a swollen fist, saying he dropped a brick on it. Sharront benches Todd until his hand heals.

Woodside is playing a marginal team but ends up losing 4-3. The player subbing for Todd in center field misjudged the gaming-winning hit.

Woodside plays its first game against St. Francis, the undefeated team that won last year’s championship. The game is scoreless until St. Francis manages to get a run. Woodside feels as if they have already lost.

Jimmy tells the team that he will win the game for them if they can get him to the plate. He is batting fifth in the inning, so two people must get on base. Seth bats just before Jimmy and there are two out when he comes to the plate to face Steve Cannon on the mound. With two strikes, Seth crowds the plate expecting a curveball. Instead, it is an inside fastball that Seth summons the courage to get hit in the back, getting a walk: “I don’t know what it feels like to be shot, but it can’t feel a whole lot worse than being hit by a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball” (163). Impressed, Jimmy tells Seth, “That took more guts than I’ve got” (164). Jimmy gets a two-strike base hit that scores two runs and wins the game. 

Seth does not see Jimmy at school until the team is gathered in the locker room before practice. Sharront calls Jimmy into his office as the team goes out to warm up. Jimmy has been suspended for cutting classes. Seth is moved to shortstop. After practice, Jimmy stops Seth on the way home and asks to talk. Jimmy is casual about his suspension. He asks Seth to write a paper for him. After some persuasion, Jimmy agrees. At home, Seth’s mother insists that they talk about Jimmy’s behavior. She knows that Jimmy has a drug or alcohol problem, and Seth knows it too. The next morning at school, Jimmy backs off his request for Seth to help him cheat, saying he will write his own paper. Seth tries to relax: “Everything is going to be okay, I told myself, as I went off to my class” (169).

Playing without Jimmy, the team is quite anxious. They stumble into success in their next game when their opponents end up with seven errors. Todd comes to life at the plate, inspiring the team. They end up winning three straight games. The night after the third game, Jimmy calls Seth to tell him he has been reinstated to the team. He has made up the work he missed and is academically eligible.

Sharront immediately puts Jimmy back to his original spot in the batting order and in the field. Todd ignores Jimmy during practice at first, but they eventually shake hands and finish the regular two-mile run in first place together. Jimmy boasts that all his troubles are a thing of the past: “I’ve got it together now, Seth, I really do. No more garbage. Just baseball” (171).

The team elevates it play both offensively and defensively and wins five straight games by large margins. St. Francis is keeping pace with them, winning each game narrowly. This doesn’t really matter, Seth knows: “the standings don’t show whether your games are close or blowouts. The only thing they show is your record, and we were tied for first” (172).

After the team handily wins their sixth game, Seth overhears Alex invite Jimmy to a gathering that would likely include drinking. Jimmy reluctantly turns down the invitation. Seth wonders if Jimmy can maintain his resolve to avoid drinking.

Their next game is against the one team that beat them during the season. The Woodside pitcher cannot find the strike zone and the opposition ends up getting two runs. Sharront puts in a relief pitcher in the second inning who is extremely anxious. Jimmy tells him to keep his pitches low: “You get them to hit the ball on the ground, and Seth and me will take care of you” (175). Woodside manages to avoid giving up more runs. With two outs in the sixth inning, Seth leads a rally, loading the bases for Todd who hits a grand slam home run. This sets up the rematch with St. Francis.

Seth and everyone on his team is extremely anxious about Sunday’s game against St. Francis. When he cannot sleep, he goes to the kitchen and finds his mother drinking tea. They talk about his father. She tells Seth that he was everything to his father, who was a good man. She says, “You were robbed of your father, Seth. Death took him from you. Nothing will ever change that” (178).

Woodside responds to the challenge of the big game by demolishing St. Francis 9-1. With only two games left in the season, Woodside only has to win one to clinch the title and move on to the state tournament.

Seth is awakened in the middle of the night by the ringing landline telephone. Alex tells him that Jimmy has been in an accident and is at the hospital. He had been at the park drinking with Alex and another player. Jimmy left, and the other boys heard sirens. Outside the park, they saw Jimmy’s wrecked red Camaro.

Seth rushes to the hospital, trying to figure out how to protect Jimmy from the consequences of what has happened. At the hospital, Coach Sharront is comforting Jimmy’s sobbing mother. Sharront tells Seth that Jimmy is dead.

Seth goes across the street to a park and sits there in a stupor until dawn. He gets in his car and cries.

Seth attends Jimmy’s funeral. The minister says that Jimmy’s death might be beneficial in serving as an example to other teenagers. Seth takes his mother home and then goes to Jimmy’s grave. He speaks to Mr. Winters about Jimmy’s goodness. Seth watches as the casket is lowered into the ground.

Seth sits under a tree, remembering everything he can about Jimmy: “I added all those things up—and a thousand other things, too—but the sum wasn’t right. They didn’t add up to Jimmy. They didn’t come close. He was my friend. It’s the only word I have for him” (185). He watches as workers fill the grave with dirt.

Having forfeited the Wednesday game, the team holds a meeting to decide whether to play their last game or forfeit it as well and make St. Francis champions. They vote 18-0 to play. Sharront gives them black armbands as they take the field, saying “Let’s win this thing for Jimmy” (186).

Seth must play in Jimmy’s position. He knows exactly what Jimmy would do in each situation. Though the team they are playing is relatively weak and they get plenty of hits, they manage only one run. Knowing it is what Jimmy would do, Seth calms the Woodside pitcher. The last opponent hits a shot to Seth, who throws him out. The team’s celebration at the mound is brief. Everyone quickly falls silent as the coach says, “It’s over, gentlemen” (190).

The team made a quick exit from the state tournament, more surrendering than being defeated: “We just didn’t have anything left to give. It was a relief to have the season end” (190).

Sharront brings in a grief counselor to talk to the team. The coach makes Seth talk to her one on one, though he has little to say.

After Seth skips the awards banquet, Sharront brings him the “Most Improved” trophy. Seth retreats from life for the first two months of summer. In August his mother intervenes. Seth realizes that he “had to get a grip on what had happened, just like a second baseman has got to get a grip on a baseball before he can throw a runner out at first” (Page 191). The counselor told him to consider writing down the story of his relationship with Jimmy, which turns into this book. Seth wonders if writing it all down has helped him deal with the losses of his friend and his father.