The Grace of Shortstops

To a growing boy, life without base?ball would be unimaginable, es?pecially in the spring of 1947. History is being made at Ebbets Field. Jackie Robinson is about to break the color line and Brooklyn has a shot at the pennant. In the Bronx, eight-year-old Ben?jamin "Peewee" Brunig dreams of making the major leagues as the next Dodger shortstop; the heir apparent to Pee Wee Reese. But even as he fan?tasizes about the future, the people around him-his mother, his rabbi father, his grandmother, even the neighborhood Rag Lady-are tor?mented by the present and the past. Only a family crisis could distract Peewee from his baseball passion. When his infant cousin is kidnaped, Peewee summons all the courage befitting a future Dodger shortstop and embarks on a search-and-rescue mission for the stolen baby. What Peewee discovers on the streets of New York is just the begin?ning in a series of shocking revela?tions that come to light about his family. A boy's loss of innocence is at the heart of Robert Mayer's richly woven narrative about the secrets and sorrows of a Jewish immigrant family and of a youngster who finds in America's greatest sport the courage and grace with which to face real life.