Essay Questions

How is the curveball situated as the perfect metaphor for this story?

The very first pitch mentioned by name in the book is the curveball. Baseball is the perfect sport for a guy like Lynn Sweet in a story like this. For the town like Macon which had grown used to and full expected to continue seeing fastballs thrown hard and straight, Sweet was definitely a curveball. The symbolism of this particular pitch corresponds perfectly with the pervasive image of the new baseball coach. He is a personality who diverges sharply off the straight and now whom some in town learned to anticipate, some occasionally hit it off with, and some struck out with completely. The path of the unpredictably predictable curveball is the ideal figurative imagery for describing Sweet even when it isn’t literally describing him at all:

"…anyone who’s played high school baseball knows the sweating nightmare that is hitting a vertiginous curveball. Someone with professional-quality heat has a reputation that precedes him, allowing batters to stand farther back and choke up. But a curveball pitcher is a terrorist who can come from anywhere.”

What is the understated symbolism of Macon’s unofficial team theme being the soundtrack to Jesus Christ, Superstar?

Although no explicit attempt is made at a symbolic linkage, the constant recurrence of the soundtrack as a reminder eventually takes on an allegorical aspect. The Macon team is viewed as a band of outsiders; kids with long hair, weird caps, and mismatched uniforms waging war against the knights of high school baseball armed at one point with literally just bat to be used by the entire team. And sitting there in dugout is their leader, the coach named Sweet with the longest hair of them and facial hair to match. The author doesn’t need to make any particular attempt to create the symbolism here; the soundtrack speaks for itself. The band of outsiders and their “weird” leader are sharply drawn enough to make the link to another band of outsiders and their “weird” leader with the long hair and strange ways. In a non-sacrilegious way, of course.

To what was Heneberry’s spectacular pitching performance against Lane Tech partially credited?

The curveball motif rises to the center of the narrative in the epic game between Macon and Lane Tech. The scene is set with the image of two men watching Heneberry and his opponent on the other team warming up. The Lane Tech pitcher is throwing with gas while Heneberry throws curveball and curveball moving so slow in comparison the ball looks as though it is floating through the air. The two men exit wondering why they Macon even showed up, certain of disaster. Sure enough, Heneberry throws curveball after curveball throughout the game, but as it always seems to be with his team, there is a more symbolic curveball waiting to be thrown with the anticipation that it will have the impact of a terrorist coming from seemingly nowhere. Shartzer, agreeing with Heneberry that he did pitch the game of his life that day, reveals the secret curveball that made it possible: the Lane Tech players had partied too hard for too long the night before the game and in the particularities of high school baseball where the fastball is everything, the hungover Tech kids simply couldn’t keep up with unpredictable movement on Heneberry’s best pitch.