The Boy Who Saved Baseball

As the game begins, María pitches underhanded. The Vikings mock her and also make fun of Rachel in the outfield. María chides them in return. The mariachi band plays so loudly that the kids cannot taunt one another.

When the game begins, María mows down the hitters on the opposite team. There is no score at the end of three innings. María gets a comebacker off her shin in the fourth inning, but she stays in the game despite the pain. The other team gets one run in. Tom ends the inning with an unassisted double play: “Catch, tag, double play! Tom could not believe it” (182).

The second time through the lineup, the wildcats can see the ball much better and begin to get hits. Wil hits a home run with two men on, putting the Wildcats up 3-1.

At the beginning of the sixth inning, María feels too much pain to continue pitching. Tom suggests to Dante that he can pitch and shows him the crossfire hurricane pitch he learned from Cruz. Tom warms up and gets three straight outs. Since Maria gave up three runs before Dante pulled her, the Wildcats trail 4-3.

Needing one run in the bottom of the last inning to tie and two to win, Tom watches as his team comes to bat. A swirling wind picks up. Tom likens one’s thoughts to the wind of the mind and wonders if winds are the thoughts of the earth. He watches the first Wildcat batter get a long double, and Rachel moves him to third base. The team gets two outs. The next batter is Wil, who gets hit on the top of the helmet and goes to first base. Clifford strikes out on the fourth pitch, but the ball gets away from the catcher: “Sure, the pitch was virtually unhittable, but he didn’t count on it being uncatchable” (189). Clifford runs to first base, and Wil advances to third. The score is tied. With two outs, the Vikings walk Rachel to load the bases and pitch to Tom. Tom comes to bat with the bases loaded and two outs, and he must get a hit or a walk to score a run.

Tom comes to home plate carrying the special bat Doc made for him using very light wood. Tom is ready but swings too fast for the first pitch. Tom knows he can see the ball clearly. On the second pitch, he hits a soaring pop up. The wind pushes the ball in different directions, and three Viking players collide while trying to catch it. As the ball drops to the ground, Tom runs to first, Wil runs home, and the Wildcats win the game.

Everybody in the stands goes wild. As the fans clap and cheer, Tom turns to see how Doc reacts. When he cannot see him, he senses something is wrong:  “‘Call 9-1-1-!’ someone yelled. ‘Doc’s in trouble. Doc’s in big trouble’” (195).

The stress of everything that had been happening and the excitement of the game led to Doc’s death. After everyone leaves, Tom and some other players remain to pick up trash from the field. About an hour after the game, the mayor walks up to Graydog, Doc’s attorney. The mayor asks if Doc had a will. Graydog answers there was a will that left everything to Doc’s son, Ken, who had died four years before. After the mayor walks away, the baseball players ask what this means. Graydog explains that there will be a probate hearing since there is no heir, and all of Doc’s property will be auctioned to the highest bidder. This means that the developers will buy the property and take over. Upon hearing this, Tom turns and walks away.

Gathered in the bunkhouse, waiting for their parents to show up for the ice cream send-off, the teammates discuss Cruz and how he abandoned them Tom insists that he led them and they would not have accomplished what they did if it hadn’t been for everything he taught them: “He showed us how to do the stuff we needed to do” (200).

Tom’s mother appears, saying the funeral for Doc will be Monday. She asks for someone from the team to speak on his behalf. Then she tells Tom and María to go to the henhouse and gather eggs for ice cream. Dante tells the players goodbye and walks away.

As they walk to the henhouse, María points out that Dante is waiting by his truck to talk to Tom. Dante explains to Tom how he had saved Tom’s mother’s life on the mountain years before. Dante said his grandmother, who had been deceased for many years, came to him when he was drunk and told him to follow her. He followed her across the mountain until he saw Tom’s mother lying in a creek bed covered with mud. She was freezing, and he fell across her and passed out. A couple of hours later, he woke. Her horse had returned, so he put Helen on top of the horse and took her to Doc.

After Dante leaves, Tom and María gather eggs. They have an emotionally intimate moment in which their hands touch. Tom stops her: “‘María,’ he said, ‘I think you are the most interesting girl I’ve ever met’” (206). She tells Tom he is the bravest boy she has ever known.

Someone shakes Tom awake in the middle of the night. When he sits up, no one is in his bedroom. He cannot go back to sleep, so he gets up and goes down to the baseball field. He imagines he’s a broadcaster and talks about how he helped score the game’s last run. A red-tailed hawk screeches out of the sky and lands on the dugout, staring at him. He doesn’t know what to say, so he walks back home.

Tom sits at his kitchen table. He pulls out his Dreamsketcher and begins to write and draw images. Helen comes into the kitchen and starts some tea. They sit and talk about Doc. Tom tells her that Dante told him his grandmother came to him in the middle of the night and led him out to find her. He asked if that was real and if Doc might come back and save him in the future. Helen says, “Who knows, Tom? There’s so much we don’t understand or can’t explain. But I’ll say this. If we die and we don’t get to know exactly how the universe really works, I want you to know that I’ll feel really cheated” (212). She starts to go back to bed, and he says he’s going to sit at the table and draw. She says people leave behind memories and letters that keep them with us, reminding Tom to look at the words Doc wrote in the back of his Dreamsketcher. When he does, he calls to his mother and father and reads them Doc’s brief last will and testament in the back of his Dreamsketcher, in which Doc leaves everything to Tom.

Tom, his parents, and Graydog show up in the mayor’s office to meet with the mayor and Alabaster. The attorney says, “This will is perfectly legal, and it does not need witnesses” (214).

Now a millionaire, Tom and his parents move into Doc’s house, which has a much better view. Tom realizes he has a gold mine with the HitSim baseball app. He climbs up in the hayloft with the barn with a brand new Dreamsketcher. He writes that the people in his town don’t agree on much, but they agree that if there had never been a boy named Cruz de La Cruz to come along, somebody would have had to invent him.