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Chapters 16-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary
One day, after dropping off a young boy. orphaned by the 9/11 events, at his new adopted family’s home in New Jersey, Mr. Gibbs heads to Michael’s house. He “[has] a feeling […] [that] the kid’s old man had run out” (110) on Michael and Carlos. Still glowing from the good feeling of helping out a child with no family, he wants to help Michael, too.
When he arrives at Michael’s building, he watches Michael practice throwing to his pitchback. Mr. Gibbs thinks he looks “like Koufax” (110). He observes how Michael looks “lost in what he [is] doing” (110) and thinks that “this kid is the real deal” (111). Finally, Mr. Gibbs approaches Michael to ask: “Where’s your father, really?” (111).
They play catch while Michael engages with the conversation, holding that his father is “in Florida” (111). But “Michael knew and Mr. Gibbs knew” (111) that the family hadn’t decided what town his father was supposed to visit. The two discuss how Michael’s father left long ago. Mr. Gibbs asks Michael if he’s “sure he didn’t just take off” (111), and Michael desperately wishes for Manny, Carlos, or Mrs. Cora to arrive soon.
Mr. Gibbs asks questions about Michael’s uncle, faster and faster, and Michael feels like “everything [is] flying past him” (114). Mr. Gibbs guesses that there “is no uncle,” and Michael grows indignant, asking: “You’re calling me a liar?” (114) As Mr. Gibbs explains his work, he details how he often sees children whose parents abandoned them. Michael resists the Inquisition and explains that he and his brother “are fine” (115). He tells Mr. Gibbs that his father will be home the “day after tomorrow” (115).
Chapter 17 Summary
That night, Manny works to convince Carlos to let his Uncle Timo pose as Michael and Carlos’ father. Manny explains that they can coach Timo to speak English “a lot worse than [their] father’s really was” (116). Carlos is still skeptical that Uncle Timo will “[make] a slip” (117), but Manny insists that they have nothing to lose. Carlos has called Father Morales, the old pastor, but there is a delay in connecting with him. The brothers share a Cuban expression, “al pan pan y al vino vino,” to express the need to “[call] things as they are, no lies” (118), but Manny insists on moving forward with his Uncle Timo's plan.
Carlos leaves for work after telling Michael that he will think about the plan, but that “nothing happens with Uncle Timo until [he gets] to meet him” (119). Carlos wants to teach Timo Cuban expressions and to make sure that he will portray his character convincingly.
When Uncle Timo arrives, Michael is impressed, because “he looked old enough to be a dad to teenaged boys” (120). When Uncle Timo speaks, though, Michael discovers that he” [sounds] more American than baseball announcers” (120). He also discovers that Timo seems like “more of a teenager than Carlos is” (120).
Uncle Timo keeps saying “dude,” and every time he does, “he [sounds] more like Manny” (121). He is “a goof” (121). But he asks Michael to pull out pictures of his father, which Michael does, so that he can “get into character” (123). Manny thinks that his staring at the photograph is “cool,” but Michael thinks “weird is more like it” (123). He knows that “this [is] never going to work in a million years” (123).
Chapter 18 Summary
Because business at Hector’s has slowed in recent weeks, Carlos is laid off. When Michael thinks Carlos is at work, he scalps tickets outside Yankee Stadium, “as afraid of being spotted by his brother as by the police” (124). His boss is Ramon Crespo, the boy who Michael gunned down with a fastball when he stole Mrs. Cora’s purse.
While Carlos works illegally to make a living, others work to support Michael, too. Mr. Minaya enlists friends connected to Havana to help out. But in the meantime, Mr. Gibbs plans to visit to meet Michael’s “father,” played by Uncle Timo. Michael is sure the plan will not work and that no one will come up with the “stupid birth certificate […] until after the season’s over” (127).
Michael attends practice, where he is allowed to pitch to Manny. He puts everything he can into his pitch, sure that he is throwing “eighty miles per hours,” and “[knocks] the best friend he [has] in the whole world on his butt” (128). Manny recognizes the aggression Michael puts into the pitch.
At that moment, Ellie shows up. Michael hopes that his expression doesn’t show “how much he had missed her” (129). Although he would later wonder why he does, he says: “Hey, it’s Miss Gonzalez […] come to slum it up with us ordinary guys?” (129). Manny tries to intercede, but Ellie fixates on Michael, disappointed that he knows.
Ellie explains the difference between lying and not telling Michael everything, asking him: “Do you tell everybody all your secrets?” (130). Even though Michael affirms that “we liked you because we liked you,” Ellie replies that “not everybody does” (130). Michael knows that he sounds like a jerk when he belittles her problems, because he “would walk around the block to avoid hurting someone’s feelings” (131).
Ellie says that she feels “stupid” (131) for coming to the field and walks away, instead of running off. When Michael calls after her, she merely waves her arm and continues to walk away.
Chapters 16-18 Analysis
For the first time yet, Michael, who “would walk around the block to avoid hurting someone’s feelings” (131), begins to get into arguments in Chapters 16 to 18. He accuses Mr. Gibbs of calling him a liar, and then he calls Ellie a liar, passing on a chain of misunderstanding that is produced by and reproduces secrets. Part of Manny and Michael’s close friendship is their constant honesty: Michael knows that he can trust Manny, and he calls him for help immediately after Mr. Gibbs shows up at his house. As Manny is more often not there to speak for Michael, Michael struggles to navigate deceptions without his help.
While Ellie’s secrets come out, Carlos’ secrets continue to build. He weighs Uncle Timo skeptically, but he is increasingly desperate to make ends meet, even signing up to work under Ramon Crespo to make some money for their small family.
Acting as “father,” then, is more and more precarious. While Carlos takes on responsibility for Michael, Michael watches Uncle Timo model a different kind of masculinity, one that looks younger and more juvenile than his own brother’s. This confused adulthood further complicates Michael’s efforts to figure out what it means to be a man.
Michael’s fame and talent continue to unite all of the separate conflicts within the story. Mr. Gibbs, Ramon Crespo, and Ellie all remember and admire Michael’s talents, which are both attractive and dangerous. The “good” thing that baseball is appears to bring only negative forces into Michael’s life, the “heat” of his fastball morphing into the “heat” of dangerous, pressurized situations.
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