At a cursory glance and more, even well into the book, it seems like the author's homage to baseball in particular and sports atmosphere in US in general, especially with the introduction meant for English and other readership of those nations that do not play baseball - and most of the world does not, while even those that do are not invited to play what is called world series in US, as the author admits in the introductory chapter explaining the sport. If one has no acquaintance with it prior to reading this book the introduction won't do much good, and one remains foggy about most of it. If one is a fan one might know a lot about this story in the first place, whether it was historic and if not was it abstracted from a few others and if so which ones.
Later into the book it seeps in that it is really about a boy growing up and his problems with a sports star father who is more than egoistic - the father facing mid thirties is dealing with his own slide downhill and more, and is unable to accept any responsibility even for himself, much less for a wife and two children, except financially, and the latter is only because he has been paid well rather than any thought on his part. He drinks and womanises extensively, and as he admits to the son and protagonist when dying, has never been faithful to his first wife, the mother of his only two children, for the whole duration of that first marriage. Subsequently he married for money and lust and then sheer necessity of human companionship or housekeeping, one is not sure which.
It is only past halfway through the story that is nevertheless engrossing due to the real hero of the book, the hero that gives it the title, that it dawns on one that it is neither about baseball which makes for the backdrop of the story and its details, nor about the selfish character the father of the protagonist, and not even really about the protagonist or the hero, not really. They all play prominent characters, but the centre is the clash of two very diverse philosophies of sport. And not merely sport at that but life really.
Joe Castle is the young talent with extraordinary capacity at his sport of choice, baseball, where he electrifies a whole nation into being his fans with the first game he plays in the national arena for Cubs, the Chicago team, with not merely capability to hit the ball but to be able to deal with whatever the pitcher throws at him in a superlative way, and often doing something completely unexpected so the team gets further rather than his own record for another hit. He is from a small town in Arkansas and has a close knit family, and the whole town gets closer together if it is possible, while Cubs fans evolve into frenzied mob and other team's fans nevertheless admire him and wish him well, and while they wish their teams to win they wish his streak would continue and grow.
The protagonist Paul Tracey is divided at the crucial point in time where his father pitches to his hero - until then he wishes he could adore his father, and is aware of the special status of the family in his small town on east coast, but is far too close to the person that the father is, and has been at the brunt of his viciousness recently, over and above his awareness of the father abusing his mother when drunk and if at home after a bout. So he wishes his hero to make history again and break records and he wishes his father to strike him out. He however is afraid, and knows with a certainty the second before it happens, about his father hitting the hero.
Wonder why sport authorities are not more vigilant about penalising any sportsmen who intentionally injure a competitor during sports - if done outside the arena it would probably get such an offender a sizeable gaol sentence and more, and in US he would have to pay for all medical bills and much more. But during sports a player with an unsportsmanlike mindset gets away almost with murder.
Warren Tracey here hits Joe Castle with a ball aimed at his head at over seventy miles an hour, with hardly a second to spare between pitch and striking him at his eye and sending him into a coma with extensive damage to his brain, vision, and more. Decades ago another one specifically instructed his team to hit opposite players deliberately, and the authorities in Australia and England could not get past the excuse that it was cricket and if the other team could not play they ought to concede - it took serious injury to Bradman, and more, before body line bowling was declared illegal, and only a player for England from India had the courage to tell his captain that it was unethical and he would not play if forced to do this.
Tracey's philosophy as he explains to his son when he - Warren, not Paul - is dying, is that it is sport, and one gets hurt, and one does not cry and ask for sympathy. But the hit was intentional in every bit, not accidental, and Paul makes him confront that fact and admit it. Paul knows him only too well, and happens to have found out after the event why Warren did it.
It was a punishment meted out to Joe deliberately for not only being too good, young, rising star, and more, but for being someone Warren's own son Paul admired and adored and had a scrapbook about amongst his other half a dozen other scrapbooks.
And this, one sees clearly, is where it stops being about philosophy of sports and is really about philosophy of life and larger - it is clash of gods and titans, of those that are good and those that would kill anyone who is good, those that revel in the sport or life or art or poetry or whatever beauty life and heavens have bestowed and those that would strike at anyone who experiences that beauty and can achieve anything anywhere.
If one excels in anything including being a loving and happy person, a Warren Tracey would strike you in the head or eye, if not with a baseball or bat then with his hand hitting your head on the wall until you cry and beg for mercy, and this only because a Warren Tracey cannot tolerate anyone being good in anything, at anything, without a toll paid to the Warren Tracey in terms of satisfying his ego in whatever coin he demands.
And this is the secret of all abusers - whether the abuse is meted out to a wife, a child, whoever.
The Joe Castles of the world on the other hand would only rather play and experience the beauty of life or sport or whatever, achieve and find joy in it, and not ego but love is their source of sustenance - and they have it better effortlessly. Tracey has no love even for his own children, and couldn't care less about grandchildren - his children have no use for the money he leaves them when he dies, for it was not of use when a little was needed as they grew up. Joe on the other hand brings his brothers to a funeral of the man who destroyed his life, a funeral not attended by most of the family of the dead Warren and none of his wives other than the current one.
If one were inclined to sympathy with the person who never experienced love or joy and had only drinking and abuse for his near and dear, that would be a drop of falsehood somewhere within one's self - for all too often charity and generosity are mere cloaks for faults one sees in others and knows are a reflection of those in one's own being.
Cubs fans, and Joe Castle had more fans than Cubs, did see to it that Warren Tracey did not go scot free - his career did not survive this maiming of someone else for life, and he was forever at receiving end of any Cubs fans who found out where he was or if he tried to play, even another so diverse a sport as golf. But really it should not be up to fans to have to punish a wrongdoer, for a Warren Tracey could just as easily much more vicious and persecute a Joe Castle by using much more falsehood and his own coterie to destroy what little life Joe had post the coma and brain damage and loss of vision due to being hit by Warren.
It really should be the responsibility of authorities of sports and law and more to see that a Warren Tracey does not maim a Joe Castle or his own family without being punished severely.
And while in personal life the punishment has to be limited to those that commit the crime or aid and abet it in any way, in sport a team benefiting from it is unfair and can only let such things go on - it will stop promptly if a team is disqualified as soon as someone like Warren Tracey beanballs an opponent who cannot get up and hit him back, or even otherwise. In this story Cubs lost when Joe was lost to the game, while Mets went on to win, reversing the trend until the beanballing of Joe Castle by Warren Tracey; had the rules disqualified Mets whole team from playing that season, a Warren Tracey would not dare to hit a Joe Castle intentionally in the first place, and if he did he would be taken out by his own team. Short of this there is every likelihood that the Warren Traceys of this world will go on hitting the Joe Castles for being good, for having achieved, in sport or any other sphere of life.
Tuesday, April 8, 2014.
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