Heart of a Champion

Seth’s narrative flashes back five years to when Seth was in sixth grade.

Seth’s mother waited for a year before suing the hotel where his father died. The hotel dragged the case out for four years, and it was ruled a mistrial after three days. Seth went to San Francisco for the trial because he wanted to find out more about his father, whom he only vaguely remembers.

Ushered out of his house while his mother and grandmother talk, Seth goes to a playground and meets Jimmy Winter, an outstanding baseball player, and his father. They invite Seth to be a part of their practice. While Jimmy’s father is always harsh and demanding toward Jimmy, pressuring his son to become the best, he’s quite kind to Seth. Reflecting on Mr. Winter’s persistent perfectionism, Seth wonders “whether it was better to have a father like that, or not to have a father at all” (5). 

Though people at his school knew about the trial in San Francisco and gave him a lot of preferential treatment, nobody talked to him about what happened.

The next Saturday, Seth again plays with Jimmy and his father at the baseball field. Jimmy’s father teaches him some finer techniques. When Jimmy tells Seth to pay close attention, Seth remarks, “Your father isn’t God” (9). Jimmy makes it clear that he wants Seth to show up for their practices, so he does not have to endure his father alone.

Since the following Sunday is Super Bowl Sunday, Jimmy’s dad wants to go home early and watch the game. Seth is amazed that Jimmy’s room is like a baseball museum. He also realizes Jimmy is the kind of guy he can talk to without being afraid Jimmy will make fun of him. Jimmy gives him a number of baseball cards, which Seth realizes is a sacrifice: “as I took those cards out of his hand I could feel how hard it was for Jimmy to give them away” (12). Seth spends the next week going back and forth between being eager to see Jimmy and being afraid to see his father.

Seth’s mother takes him to a sporting goods store to get some new baseball equipment, since he says he is going to be serious about playing baseball. Seth tries to get equipment that is just like the gear Jimmy has. That night Seth dreams about playing golf with his father watching him from a distance.

Jimmy and Seth try out for Little League. There are two levels of teams, major and minor. Jimmy wants Seth to be on his team in the major leagues, but Seth has a flawed tryout, getting hit in the eye by a baseball. Later he discovers he has been assigned to the minor leagues and is disappointed: “They’d stuck me on the Eng’s Palace Mets, a minor-league team. That night I moped through dinner” (16). Seth discusses missing his dad with his mom. Clearly the two still grieve his father.

Seth decides he needs to practice fielding even though there is no one to practice with. Finding an old rubber ball, he throws it against the house so it’ll come back as a grounder or pop up. His mother comes home and watches him. Rather than being angry, she laughs: “At the end of the summer you’ll have to paint that section” (18). She also begins to throw grounders to him every evening, doing it all through middle and high school. He knows he is fortunate—some kids have fathers who don’t play baseball with them, but his mother, who is very busy, always found time for him.

Jimmy and his father ask Seth to go to San Francisco Giants baseball game. Seth is tremendously excited. He has never been to a major league game before.

The Giants lose. During the game, Mr. Winter gets irritated with some teenagers who are razzing the team. When he has had all he can take, he stands up and starts to climb over the seat toward them. In the process he spills a beer on Jimmy and Seth. An usher asks everyone to leave. On the walk back to the car before the game is over, Mr. Winter is rude to the boys when they remind him where the car is parked. Seth had never been talked to by a parent that way before: “I don’t know how Jimmy felt, but I was close to tears. My mother never told me to shut up. She just didn’t talk that way” (22).

Seth’s mother smells beer on him when he gets home. After Seth explains what happened, she forbids him to go with Mr. Winter to another game again. Later, Jimmy insists to Seth that his father was not drunk. Jimmy says he is sure that his father regretted his actions even though his father didn’t say anything about it.

Seth and Jimmy play in different leagues. Jimmy plays in the major leagues at the Kiwanis Field, which looks like a full-fledged baseball diamond. Seth plays at Ben Franklin School, which is just a sandlot with downhill slope. Jimmy helps Seth learn to hit the ball into right field where it will roll down the slope and be called a ground rule double. Seth becomes the best hitter on the minor league team; on the last game of the season, Seth gets called up to play on the major league team with Jimmy, but the phenomenal pitcher Steve Cannon strikes him out. Jimmy is miserable, believing he is never going to be a good baseball player.

That Saturday he sees Jimmy without his father. Jimmy’s parents are getting a divorce. Seth’s mother says, “Divorce is not the end of the world, Seth. Jimmy will still see his father” (27), but Seth proclaims it is the worst thing that could happen, briefly forgetting his father’s death.

The summer after Little League season, Jimmy and Seth play baseball almost every day at Henry Ford Park. They always play on the same team so they can work on their double play abilities. They are very specific and intensive about their practice. They both imagine themselves being major league baseball players, though Seth doesn’t think he’ll ever make it to the majors. Jimmy buys Seth a lighter bat, and Seth hits a fastball for the first time. Also, Jimmy realizes that he can pitch.

Jimmy and Seth practice through the end of the year. At Christmas, Jimmy tells Seth that his dad is going to get counseling. Jimmy hopes his parents will get back together.

One Saturday morning, when Seth and Jimmy are hitting fly balls to each other at the park and older boy named John Tustin shows up. He plays baseball with the boys, and then demands that they accompany him to a secret shack in the woods. There, he offers them cigarettes, beer, and pornographic magazines.

Jimmy and Seth want nothing to do with Tustin, but Seth is too weak to say no. Finally, they run back to the park and make a pact with one another that they will never go again. Seth questions whether he would have had the ability to leave Tustin if Jimmy had not been there: “Jimmy saved me. Maybe without him I would have done anything Tustin wanted me to do” (36).

Seth and Jimmy continue to practice baseball all through the winter. When it rains, they play Wiffle ball in Seth’s garage. Seth is very good at Wiffle ball and Jimmy becomes angry about it.

One day, Seth manages to hit his first home run off Jimmy. He jumps up and down, showing off, which really irritates Jimmy. Jimmy pitches a fastball right at Seth head that Seth barely avoids. The two yell at each other. The pitch especially frightens Seth because he remembers the diagram of his father’s head at the trial. Eventually, Seth and Jimmy apologize to each other.

Seth tries out for the Babe Ruth league. He’s incredibly nervous before the tryout, even though Jimmy reassures him. After the tryout, the coach warns the players that not everybody will make the team.

When the list of team members is posted, Seth at first only sees Jimmy’s name. But as Seth looks again, he sees that his name is first on the list. Later, his mom confronts Seth about his low self-esteem. She insists he is on the team because he has worked so hard to make it. His father had been the same way about golf: “He used to say that he had to practice because he was a lousy golfer. The best lousy golfer in the world, he said, but still a lousy golfer” (42).

Seth and Jimmy are assigned to the Redwood City Reds. Their coach is Mr. Loffler, a nice guy who doesn’t know a lot about baseball. Jimmy keeps interrupting him to tell him how his father would do things until Loffler tells Jimmy to quit interrupting. Loffler says Mr. Winter is welcome to coach the team. On the walk home, Seth thinks this is a good idea, but Jimmy cuts him off, telling him to shut up. Seth is surprised by Jimmy’s strong reaction: “He’s never jumped on me before, not like that. I should have told him off, but I was too stunned to say anything” (43).

On the first game in the Babe Ruth league, Seth’s mother drives him and stays to watch him play. Seth also sees Jimmy’s dad, who is sitting with his new girlfriend. When Mr. Winter yells out to encourage Jimmy, it is clear that he is drunk.

Seth has a great game, while Jimmy has an awful one. The game comes down to the bottom of the last inning, but with runners at second and third bases and two outs, the Reds could still win. Jimmy comes to bat. He strikes out on three pitches.

After the game, Jimmy explains that his father had come to their house in a drunken rage at midnight, forced his way inside, and said he was going to kill Jimmy’s mother and her non-existent lover. Jimmy and his mom are going to move to another town eight miles away. Seth realizes this means they will not be seeing each other or playing baseball together anymore.