Passage
Analysis
“Jim O’Toole and I started out even
in the spring. He wound up with the Ross Eversoles and I with a new lease on
life. And as I daydreamed of being fireman of the year in 1970 I wondered what
the dreams of Jim O’Toole are like these days. Then I thought, would I ever do
that? When it’s over for me, would I be hanging on with Ross Eversoles? I went
down deep and the answer I came up with was yes. Yes I would. You see, you
spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out
that it was the other way around the whole time” (Bouton 398).
In the
passage, Bouton talks about his perspective on life and where he is currently
in his career and how much he doesn’t want it to be out of his life. The passage
is very important because he talks about what he would do after his career in
the Major Leagues, which would be to play in the minor leagues like Jim
O’Toole. Just before the passage, Bouton is summarizing what happened
throughout the course of the year and how he is in the situation to win an
award while Jim O’Toole is just hanging on in the minor league. Although Bouton
didn’t win any awards, he went to a sports banquet and he got a
standing
ovation. He was very shocked when he got it because he didn’t know he was
respected by the other athletes.
This
passage also displays a metaphor; the last sentence is comparing the grip on a
baseball to baseball’s grip on his life. This metaphor is saying that baseball
is controlling his whole life, but he is supposed to be directing his own
course in life. Jim realizes that
baseball is his life and is controlling him. For example: Baseball has affected
his family and where they had lived. He should have made big changes to his
life instead of baseball making changes for him because family matters more
than baseball. This passage is a summary of his baseball career as a whole.
