49 pages • 1 hour read
Alan GratzA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Walter and his family are on Coney Island, and he hears a baseball game playing. He is a batboy for the Brooklyn Superbas team, so he’s interested in the game while his parents check in to their hotel. Talented Black baseball players play the game; Walter is told that the players are Cuban and are part of the wait staff at the hotel. Three boys come up to Walter and insist he give them the bat he got for being batboy. They call him derogatory terms based on their belief that he is Jewish, while Walter insists that he is not (107). They beat him and take his hat before a Pinkerton comes over and grabs Walter for fighting as the other boys run away. Walter’s parents arrive just in time and tell him them that there is not enough room in the hotel for them. Walter insists that they must have room because the hotel has 1,000 rooms and they have a reservation. Still, his parents say they must go to the West Brighton Inn instead of the Brighton Beach Hotel where they always stay. As they check in, Walter’s father checks them in under the name Snider instead of Schneider and tells Walter they will be changing their name. Walter insists that Schneider is a German name, not a Jewish name. His father blames Russian Jewish people for their difficulties, because he says the Russian Jewish community does not blend in enough. Walter continues to insist that they are not Jewish and complains about having to change their name 100 years after the family first arrived in the country.
Walter goes to the Brighton Beach Hotel, and he still does not understand why their name implies they are Jewish when there are plenty of Christian Germans. He goes to watch another baseball game and is impressed with the pitcher. He wants to ask the pitcher to try out for the Superbas when he sees the smallest of the three boys who beat him up. Walter beats the boy before running away. Later, he goes to watch a baseball movie at Coney Island’s Luna Park when he hears the song “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Afterward, he runs into the baseball players and tries to speak to them in made up Spanish, believing they are Cuban. The men tell him that they are Black, but they say that they are Cuban so people will watch their games. They know people understand the truth, but the lie allows them to watch, nevertheless. The pitcher, Cyclone Joe Williams, says he is part Comanche, but he is also part Black, and therefore no one will allow him to try out for a National League team. In the past, Black and white men played baseball together, but not any longer. Walter leaves and runs into the second boy who beat him up, and he attacks him as well.
Walter goes back to the hotel to find Cyclone Joe. He goes into the kitchen, where he finally sees the pitcher and convinces him to come try out for the Superbas as a member of the Comanche tribe. He has already spoken with the manager who has agreed to let him try out. Williams is supposed to call himself Joseph Deerskin. Walter runs into the third boy who beat him up who is wearing Walter’s hat. The boy is with his parents, but Walter quickly punches him in the face and grabs his hat back before running away.
When Walter and Cyclone Joe Williams get to the tryout, no one welcomes Williams, and Donovan, the manager, tells him that they do not have any space for a new pitcher. Finally, one of the men convinces the rest to let Cyclone try out so that they can see his special tommyhawk pitch. Cyclone pitches numerous strikes, but whenever a man hits a ball, the players refuse to play it or purposefully make errors. Afterward, the manager tells Walter that the other teams never would have played against a Black man. Walter walks along the pier and thinks about how he used to think there was treasure at the bottom of the ocean. He throws his hat to the bottom, allowing it to settle “with the rest of the trash at the bottom of the great black sea” (132).
Frankie goes around to her neighbors’ homes as they all place bets on which numbers will win that day. Mrs. Radowski always chooses the numbers four, six, and zero, because they represent her deceased husband’s birthday. Amos, a large man, lets her in as she prepares to give the numbers. She does not have to write them down, and she gives the numbers to Mr. Jerome. A man named Mickey Fist comes in, and he starts asking her math facts, all of which she can answer easily. He tells her that she could work in his organization when she is older.
Two men argue about numbers. Instead of pulling numbers out of a hat to see who wins, they use the newspaper’s numbers from the track. People believe this is fairer because the numbers cannot be faked this way. Sometimes, the numbers in the paper are incorrect, however. Today is one of those days. Mickey tells the man that their policy is to use the numbers printed in the paper regardless.
Frankie leaves and wanders upon her father, a police officer. He knows how she earns money even though playing the numbers is illegal. Speakeasies are illegal as well, but many police officers go to them. Even though Frankie’s father used to be a batboy for the Brooklyn Superbas, he hates the team, and she does not know why. She wears his Giants hat, even though she likes the Brooklyn team. He wants her to go to college, but she says, “no girls go to college, Pop” (139).
Frankie goes to Ebbets Field. She inadvertently sits in the press section, and when John Kieran, a reporter, questions why she is there, she tells him that her name is Frankie Snider. John writes his reports about the game before the game begins and then just changes details afterward that turn out to be wrong. Frankie explains that the math of gambling does not make sense, because even if people occasionally win, they still end up losing money in the long run. She says that the people who gamble frequently have the least amount of money. Kieran asks her why she partakes in the system, and she says that they can make their own decisions, and she has no right to tell them what to do.
Frankie meets Kieran again on another day, and he explains that the field is where an old pigsty once stood in a place called Pigtown. Frankie says she likes baseball because of the mathematical aspect of the game. Where she thinks “numbers are the one true thing in the world,” he shows her that numbers do not always tell the whole story (151). He says he also believes that some poets would not agree with her statement about numbers being the only source of truth. He points out how there is an element of luck even in an earned run average (ERA), and he explains how even though people claim a man has hit 10 home runs, if they have not seen them all, they cannot know for sure. Reasoning further, he asks her if she has ever seen a newspaper make a mistake. He explains that it is possible for someone to cheat while playing the numbers even though they use numbers from the paper, and he says someone could hypothetically make the numbers one, two, and three win even if they are not correct. The next morning, she is shocked to see that the winning numbers are one, two, and three.
Frankie goes and checks numerous newspapers and verifies that the numbers should not have been one, two, and three. She runs to Mrs. Radowski and questions her about gambling. The woman tells her that even if she won big one day, she likely would still gamble. She realizes that most of the customers would do the same. Frankie runs into her father, and she convinces him to play that day. He is suspicious, but he plays $2. She explains that she can handle what she is doing. He tells her not to tell anyone that the money is from him, so she breaks it up among other people who never play.
Frankie goes to the ballpark and talks to Kieran. Frankie asks him to list the numbers as four, zero, and six. The next day those are the numbers printed in the paper. She goes to see Mickey and Jermone, and they are angry, knowing she has cheated in some way. They tell her that they will not pay out, and she does not understand how they can avoid it. Suddenly, her father comes to the door, but the men do not know that he is her father. He introduces himself as Sergeant Walt Snider, of the New York Police Department (NYPD), and he insists that they pay out. Afterward, Frankie apologizes to her father. She no longer has a job, but he tells her that the money they won will be used to pay for her college.
The story of Walter and Cyclone Joe Williams demonstrates the growing problem of white American Racial Discrimination and Its Systemic Effects. Walter’s family is discriminated against because of their German ancestry, and this experience is emphasized through Walter’s own confusion. He cannot understand why they’re treated differently because of the way others perceive them, highlighting how the prejudice is not founded in logic or reason. As Walter is harassed by boys his own age who assume he’s Jewish because of his German name, even he knows their discrimination is unfounded.
That these discriminations are based on the Schneider name outlines how the racial discrimination against Jewish people has already become systemic. Walter perpetuates his own biases as he observes the Black players and thinks that the game resembles more of a minstrel show, theater once performed by white performers wearing “blackface.” His thoughts demonstrate how the racist beliefs of others can be couched amongst their own feelings of isolation. The complexities of these intersections are emphasized even more as Walter gets a tryout for Cyclone by telling the Black player to claim his Comanche tribal roots over his Black heritage. Gratz shows the embedded racism as Walter, a white male child, secures talks between the team and Cyclone instead of Cyclone’s talents as a player earning him notice. Walter is exposed to the biases Cyclone experiences as the team says that they’re willing to allow Cyclone to try out, but then refuse to work with his pitches. Walter doesn’t understand this until it’s explicitly explained to him that the team understood Cyclone’s Black heritage and the consequences of allowing a Black player on the team. The racism of the age, Walter is told, would have prevented the team from playing at all, as no other team would have been willing to play against a team with a Black player amongst their ranks.
Further systemic effects of racial discrimination are felt in Walter’s own immediate family as his father alters the family name from Schneider to Snider after being rejected from their regular Coney Island hotel reservation for the first time. The change in the family name demonstrates the degree to which immigrants must assimilate and deny their own culture to survive in America. Moreover, Walter’s father was not the first to consider changing the family name, as Felix’s Uncle Albert also considered making the change to make finding a job easier. Uncle Albert never followed through, however, where Walter’s father does. The change comes about as the family becomes more removed from Felix’s generation, and Walter points out that his family has been in America for a 100 years. Still, the family name is changed, and this shows how even after being in America for many decades, the family still faces prejudice.
As Frankie’s story is the first female perspective within the Schneider lineage, the societal view of women is outlined. Frankie operates independently, showing how women have been given greater autonomy by the mid-1920s, but are still defined by their relationships with male counterparts. Frankie, however, can fulfill her role as a bookie using her femininity as a workaround. Frankie’s cleverness emphasizes The Difficulties of Determining Trustworthiness as she fluidly moves from trusted number runner to fixing the game for her own success. Like Felix stowing away on a ship to America, and like Louis who stole money from deceased Confederate soldiers to purchase food, Frankie is willing to blur the lines to ensure her own survival. As a female bookie, she’s able to secure her family’s financial mobility by learning information she might not have been able to learn if she were male. She’s seen as a friendly acquaintance for a sports reporter who reveals a rigged system of numbers as she declares her belief in baseball’s mathematic accuracy. The reporter shows her how the game isn’t as accurate as she thinks, allowing her to work the system for her family’s benefit. The male reporter introduces her to the gaps in the system, and the male-centered organization she works for provides her the monetary payout, while her father keeps her safe in his role as a police officer. Frankie’s life is still outlined by the males around her, but she secures her college education through her own intelligence, affording the generations after her new opportunities.
Frankie’s journey to report the numbers she runs for her employer situates the historical framing of her generation like those before her. As she reflects about customers on her street, she shows how the US was marketed as a melting pot as immigrants from Russia, Poland, Germany, etc., all submit bets to Frankie. Her mid-1920s life is underscored the most as she enters a dry cleaner’s, makes her way through a service door, and enters a basement saloon. The saloon is a product of the 18th Amendment, more commonly known as Prohibition, in which the sale of alcohol was banned in 1919. Secret drinking holes were common as the ban moved bars and the sale of alcohol underground, where its popularity grew. Unfamiliar with what the saloon would have looked like when alcohol was legal to sell, Frankie thinks about how Walter called the saloon a “blind pig”: “Her pop told her blind pigs were just places to go and have a drink anyway […] before the Anti-Saloon League types had pushed Prohibition through. It was the speakeasies that were supposed to have singing and dancing too” (132). It becomes clear through Frankie’s rumination that Prohibition has helped her trade as a bookie flourish. While Walter knows about the establishments as a police officer, Frankie experiences a different side of the underground life, and prospers for it.
By Alan Gratz
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