The Boy Who Saved Baseball

“Funny, ain’t it, son? Now that it’s all come down to me, it looks like I took over being the most popular and the least popular man in town at the same time.”

This quote, spoken by Doc to Tom at the beginning of the narrative, is ironic in numerous ways. First, since he holds the town’s fate in his hands, Doc complains that everyone who comes to see him has an agenda, so he is relieved to see Tom, who is just his young friend and daily visitor. In actuality, though, Tom has come to persuade him not to sell his property to developers. The mantle of simultaneously being the most and least popular person in Dillontown ironically passes among the four main characters: Dante, Doc, Cruz, and ultimately Tom.

“Doc’s voice rose up loud and strong. ‘I hereby propose a good old-fashioned baseball game to settle the matter. A team from that new summer camp down the road versus a team from our camp here in town. Like they’ve done the past few years, only this time it’s really going to mean something. One Big Game. Do or die. If our team wins, I pull out of this deal and this town stays the way it is. If they lose, bring on the bulldozers.’”

Doc, who seems to know his time is short, vacillates between disrupting the lives of people he has lived with and cared for all his life or making way for the seemingly inevitable process of suburban sprawl with the modernization it will bring. Here he sidesteps responsibility by suggesting the baseball showdown that immediately spotlights Tom. Ritter’s reference to Doc’s voice as loud and strong is an ironic reference to the ongoing theme of Tom’s inability to speak.