The Batboy

The story begins in medias res––a Latin term that is literally translated as “in the middle of things” and denotes a story that begins in the midst of the action and then backtracks later to provide necessary exposition. By starting the narrative when Brian is already a batboy and is experiencing the action of Major League Baseball, Lupica immediately creates a dynamic, action-packed situation. The narrative endeavors to capture the vibrancy of the moment when Brian beholds the latest game and feels “as if baseball [i]s close enough for him to reach out and touch” (11). With this description, Lupica endeavors to conjure the excitement of a live baseball game, and he then uses the immediacy of this scene to catapult the narrative into a more in-depth description of Brian’s long-term love affair with the game of baseball.

The Omnipresent Influence of Baseball is a prevalent theme throughout the narrative, and from the very beginning of the novel, it is clear that Brian’s interest in the sport dominates nearly every aspect of his life. When Brian isn’t serving as a batboy, he is either playing for his Little League team, practicing his baseball skills, or watching the latest game on television. Because his interest in baseball is so intense, the ripples of his focus also affect his loved ones, especially his mother. Although Liz has no love for baseball due to the strife that the sport caused in her marriage to Cole, she must nonetheless learn the basics of the game in order to work on Overcoming Miscommunication and Forging New Connections with her son. Because Brian’s life revolves around baseball, it functions as a separate world, causing Liz to think of it as a “foreign language she’d had to learn in school and then never wanted to use again” (34). Despite Liz’s issues with the negative associations she has with baseball, she reveals herself to be a supportive mother when she allows her son to pursue his dreams and work as a batboy for the Tigers. Ultimately, she realizes that she cannot prevent Brian from embracing the lure of baseball, so instead, she uses humor to deal with its excessive impact on her life.

Brian’s intense interest provides him with a meaningful identity and pushes him to excel in multiple aspects of his life. By constantly consuming baseball in some form, he soon becomes a baseball savant with his head “full of the numbers of baseball, all the numbers that not only h[o]ld the sport together but connect[] one season to another, one era to another” (12). Fortunately, Brian’s unchecked baseball knowledge does not negatively impact his broader life, as his intense study of the sport also compels him to excel in school. As Brian tells Jim Schenkel, the Tigers’ equipment manager, “I’ve worked harder than ever at my schoolwork, telling myself that with every paper I wrote and every test I aced, I was working my way toward Comerica” (22). This statement proves that Brian sees baseball as a powerfully motivating factor, and as the novel progresses, Lupica reveals that the protagonist also associates the sport with his fondest memories of his now-absent father, who triggers complex feelings.

Brian’s complex relationships with his parents highlight the theme of overcoming miscommunication and forging new connections. Because Liz thinks of baseball as an onerous “foreign language,” she inevitably has trouble communicating with Cole and Brian because she resists the idea of learning more about the sport. At the same time, the all-consuming effect of baseball hampers the communication between Cole and Brian; although father and son connect over the sport, they fail to find a similar level of connection in any other area of their lives. As the narrative states, “[Cole] didn’t know how to be a dad with anything else, didn’t know how to talk to Brian about anything else [but baseball]” (21). There are other languages aside from baseball, but because Cole is only fluent in baseball, he has a very narrow relationship with his son, and his continuing absence in the story speaks far louder than Brian’s fond memories of their past connection and time spent together.

The first five chapters lay the groundwork for the critical life lesson of Accepting Disappointments and Major Life Changes, as it is clear from the very beginning that Brian’s life is already fraught with uncertainty and loss. For example, Brian and Liz both experience disruptive life changes when Liz and Cole get a divorce. Although Liz welcomes the new situation and is glad to stop competing with baseball for Cole’s attention, Brian is far less adaptive. Even when Cole was present, he was not effective at communicating with his son on a deeply meaningful level, and when he goes to Japan, his communication with Brian stops altogether. To make matters worse, Cole also fails to contact Brian on his birthday, leaving the boy with the impression that his father cannot be bothered with him. Lacking a positive father figure in his life, Brian turns even more strongly to the world of baseball and idolizes the famous Hank Bishop despite the player’s two steroid suspensions and unsavory reputation. In the following chapters, Brian must learn to cope with his father’s absence, and his yearning for a positive role model foreshadows the eventual connection that he forges with Hank.

Significantly, Lupica mixes fictional players with real-life baseball figures and products to give the narrative a sense of verisimilitude. Although Hank and the other Tigers players and staff mentioned in the story are purely fictitious, Sunday Night Baseball is a real program on ESPN. On Sundays during the regular season, ESPN selects one match-up for the night. Additionally, Brian mentions real-life players alongside fictional players when he tells Jim Schenkel, “I know about Al Kaline and Kirk Gibson and my personal all-time favorite player, Hank Bishop” (23). Thus, Lupica creates the impression that Hank is a part of the Tigers’ history and is just as authentic as Kaline and Gibson.