46 pages • 1 hour read
Mike LupicaThe Batboy
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Omnipresent Influence of Baseball
Baseball has an extensive impact on all the characters in the novel, although this influence varies from moment to moment and takes on both negative and positive connotations. Cole’s compulsion to focus on baseball while actively ignoring his family has a profoundly negative impact on Brian’s well-being, and Cole’s fixation on the game ultimately ruined his own marriage and costs him any chance at developing a positive relationship with his son. At times, Brian’s own passion for baseball also has an adverse influence, as is demonstrated when Kenny attributes Brian’s hitting slump to his excessive focus on baseball. As he tells Brian, “Maybe even you can’t eat, sleep, and drink baseball every single hour of every single day of your whole life” (128). As baseball begins to subsume Brian’s identity, the protagonist must find a solution to regain some balance in his life.
Along these same lines, Lupica’s narrative turns baseball into a universe unto itself, and Liz actively avoids becoming a part of this dynamic by setting boundaries and maintaining a firm separation from the game. When Liz drops Brian off at Comerica Park, she stays in her car, “[l]ike this [i]s as close to Comerica—to this world—as she want[s] to get” (49). As Brian becomes consumed by the baseball world, he becomes immersed in the society that stems from it, forming friendships with players such as the gregarious Willie Vazquez and the surly Hank Bishop. He also studies the history of baseball and finds creative ways to come to terms with the darker aspects of its past, such as the problems that arose from the steroid era. Ultimately, however, baseball has a positive influence on Brian because he uses it to overcome his melancholy over his father’s absence, and as he develops a relationship with Hank, he learns to move on from Cole’s abandonment of the family. Through baseball, Hank and Brian cement their bond, and Hank becomes a more suitable father figure than Cole could ever be. For Hank and Brian, baseball ties them to a world of meaningful accomplishments and relationships.
Even Liz comes to see the positive side of the game, for although she has had negative experiences with Cole’s approach to baseball and must overcome the lasting emotional damage of her unsuccessful marriage, she eventually comes to view it as a positive force. However, this evolution in her mindset lasts for the entirety of the novel, and in the earlier chapters, she is frustrated by the disagreements she has with her son. As she tells Brian, “I feel like we’re having a fight about something here and I don’t even know what it’s about, which is something I mastered when your dad was still around” (109).
Although Liz’s wish to be “banned from baseball for life” reveals that baseball will never define her (37), the game proves to be central to Brian, the most important person in her life, so she must confront its influence regardless. As Brian becomes closer to Hank, Liz’s interest in baseball grows. She attends Hank’s 500th home-run game and cheers on Brian during the Little League playoffs. Ultimately, Liz embraces baseball because she witnesses its benefits; it gives her son a suitable father figure, and it brings her a possible romantic partner. Nevertheless, there’s no indication that Liz will surrender her autonomy and “eat, sleep, and drink baseball” like Brian (128).
Overcoming Miscommunication and Forging New Connections
The difficulty of communication appears throughout the story as the characters struggle to express themselves and create meaningful relationships with others. Nowhere is this dynamic more clearly articulated than in Brian’s ongoing attempts to connect with Hank, whose preoccupation with his past failures initially causes him to dismiss the boy’s hero worship and rebuff his attempts to make friends.
In Chapter 22, however, Brian finally has a constructive interaction with Hank, as Hank successfully communicates to Brian what he must do to improve his swing. Two chapters later, however, the communication returns to being unpleasant, revealing that Hank still has some progress to make before he is fully ready to embrace a positive connection with Brian, his biggest fan and supporter. The harsh dialogue in Hank’s moments of rejection highlights the hardships of the communication process. From one angle, Hank reverts to his misanthropic personality, but his reaction is not without cause, as Brian’s overeager approach becomes an intrusion, especially when he fails to realize that Hank is having a tough time hitting the ball and might not be in the mood to talk.
Throughout the novel, the intricacies of baseball bolster the tangled layers of communication between the various characters. Because baseball dominates Brian’s life, its terms and definitions become his first language, even when he speaks of other things, forcing Liz to support the baseball-as-a-language formula. Her unease with this parlance is clear when she refers to baseball as a “foreign language she’d had to learn in school and then never wanted to use again” (34). However, to communicate effectively with her son, Liz must learn to “speak baseball,” and this necessity contributes to her growing acceptance of the game’s presence in her daily life.
Additionally, the novel’s climactic scenes also reflect the idea that “speaking baseball” creates an array of meanings. In the final chapter, for example, Hank tells Brian, “Told you to wait,” and Brian thinks, “I waited for this, all right. Waited my whole life” (230). While Hank was telling Brian to wait for a good pitch, Brian has also been waiting for a heroic baseball moment and the presence of a stable father figure. Thus, this exchange has multiple meanings that highlight the resolution of Brian’s innermost conflicts, bringing a solid conclusion to the story as a whole.
Accepting Disappointments and Major Life Changes
Throughout the novel, Brian’s life is fraught with difficult changes, both within and beyond the realm of baseball. For example, as the Sting blow a 5-0 lead to the Rockies, the narrative remarks, “Different day, different game. It was one of the beauties of sports, how fast things changed” (43). The vacillation in life’s fortunes also impacts Brian’s and Hank’s personal performances in the game, with each character enduring a hitting slump and helping each other recover their skills. In a much broader sense, Hank’s baseball career also undergoes dramatic changes, for although he starts as an MVP “on his way to the Hall of Fame” (30), his conflicts with the team and his decision to use steroids upend his trajectory, leaving him with a burning desire to prove himself to his teammates and fans. Ironically, Hank needs to prove to people that he hasn’t changed and can still excel at baseball and reach the 500 milestone, even without the use of steroids. To accomplish his goal, however, Hank must change his attitude and embrace Brian’s support and admiration. After watching videos of his swing on Brian’s laptop, Hank changes back to his former swing and is finally able to hit the 500th home run of his career.
Brian undergoes a certain number of internal changes even though his devotion to baseball remains constant. His determination to befriend Hank causes the baseball player to become a new father figure for Brian, but this shift is only made possible when Brian changes his perspective on his own father, relinquishing the idealized version of him that he created in his head during Cole’s absence. Until Cole returns from Japan, Brian cherishes a rosy image of his dad, using section 135 as a means to revisit fond memories. However, once Cole returns, his physical presence reminds Brian of his father’s shortcomings and pushes him to accept that Cole will never change or improve. Ceding Cole’s lack of change enables Brian to change his own life, as Hank can now step in and be the father figure that Cole cannot. Instead of trying to change a person like Cole, Brian moves on.
By contrast, Liz does not fight change; she accepts it, and this mindset reinforces her balanced, sensible characterization. When she and Cole divorced, Liz admits that she felt “[r]elieved” because she “didn’t have to compete with baseball anymore” (35). Liz also does not try to “compete with baseball" for her son’s attention. By accepting that she can’t change Cole or Brian, she lets baseball become an important part of Brian’s life, and she actively supports his interests. She also accepts that baseball’s omnipresence can have a positive impact on her life and Brian’s, as the sport gives her a romantic partner and provides her son with a father figure, so she adjusts her attitude and becomes a fan.
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