The Town
The book opens with a portrait of Macon, Illinois in the spring of 2010. The story itself takes place during the 1960’s and early 1970’s. Macon at that time was still stuck in the Eisenhower myth of America during the 1950’s. It is a story of a place stuck in time trying be dislodged by the arrival of the future. The imagery of the beginning tells the end:
"Macon appears no different…marked only by an exit and a sign that reads A CITY OF PROGRESS BUILT ON PRIDE, EST. 1869…the town marker that reads POPULATION 1,200, suggests progress has slowed of late. The Macon Motel, hard by the highway, is a run-down, one-story building with a plastic billboard that, in listing the amenities, reads only PHONE. A bit farther down the road, the battered façade of the Whit’s End, the town’s only restaurant, is visible, promising CARRY-OUT BEER.”
The Old Coach
That future arrives in the form of a long-haired, Fu-Manchu mustachioed hippie who dares to tell his team that practice isn’t mandatory, that they can choose what position they play themselves and whose team song is “Jesus Christ, Superstar.” As for the guy who used to be coach, imagery tells the story:
“Burns had been a Britton special, hired to toughen up the kids. Standing six-foot-two and weighing in the neighborhood of 250, he looked like a tractor with a flattop. Burns grew up in Kennett, Missouri; played tackle at Arkansas State; and was fond of ordering the boys to lie on their backs and close their eyes while he recited speeches from Patton at a tremendous volume.”
The New Guy
Lynn Sweet is that new coach, the future. Well, technically, Sweet was very much of the present; imagery paints him throughout the story as almost a stereotype of a hip 1960’s high school teacher who comes in forces everyone to get groovy, man. But imagery doesn’t tell the real story. On the outside, Sweet was just another George Harrison wannabe, perhaps, but—like George Harrison—he really was a figure living a decade or two ahead of everyone else:
“silhouetted against the morning light, was a man in shorts and canvas slippers, tearing down the street. As the figure got closer, Roush recognized the mop of brown hair and realized it was Sweet, pumping his arms and sprinting around town for what appeared to be no good reason…this being 1970, the idea of running for fun hadn’t yet entered the national consciousness. Runner’s World had only recently graduated from being a pamphlet printed out of [a] Kansas home...and it would be a year before the release of a shoe called Nike.”
The Curveball
Baseball is the perfect sport for a guy like Lynn Sweet in a story like this. For the town of Macon used to fastballs thrown hard and straight, Sweet was definitely a curveball who some in town learned to anticipate, some occasionally hit it off with and some struck out. The path of the unpredictably predictable curveball is the ideal imagery for describing Sweet even when it isn’t describing him at all:
“Iwanski had been taught not to swing at curveballs until there were two strikes, for the best that could happen was you hit it hard on the ground. But with Heneberry, he knew all he was going to see were curves, and 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.”
