Baseball in April and Other Stories
50 pages • 1-hour read
Gary SotoBaseball in April and Other Stories
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Stories 9-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Story 9 Summary: “La Bamba”
One morning, Manuel, who longs to be in the spotlight, thinks about the talent show for which he volunteered to lip-synch the song “La Bamba.” At lunch, his friend Benny advises him to dance as well. However, when it is Manuel’s turn to perform at rehearsal later that day, Mr. Roybal, the talent show supervisor, cannot get the record player to work. As a result, Manuel watches everyone else’s routines and twirls the record on his finger. When Benny comes on stage and loudly plays the trumpet, Manuel accidentally drops the record. Relieved when it does not break, he wipes it down.
All night, he thinks of his performance. He even practices in the shower. In bed, though, he prays and worries. Once, for Science Week, he had been so excited to show everyone how a flashlight worked that when it was his turn to present his project, the battery was dead. Feigning confidence, Manuel convinces himself that nothing will go wrong this time.
The next morning, despite his parents’ questions, he stays quiet, wanting his performance to be a surprise. The day goes by quickly, and soon he finds himself backstage, listening as the crowd files in and Mr. Roybal welcomes everyone. After several acts, it is Manuel’s turn. Nervous, he wonders why he volunteered. The music starts, and he sings along and dances. At first, the audience is quiet, but as he starts dancing, he hears applause and screams. This helps him get “into the groove as he shivered and snaked like Michael Jackson around the stage” (87). But then, the record gets stuck on one line of the song, so Manuel is forced to pretend to repeat it. He wonders if the record got scratched when he dropped it. Ultimately, his embarrassment grows as the audience laughs. When Mr. Roybal stops the record, a tearful Manuel bows and runs off stage.
At the end of the show, all the performers return to the stage, and Manuel receives uproarious applause. Moments later, everyone—even the popular kids—swarm and tell him that he was funny. Although he is confused, Manuel relishes the positive attention. One student asks him how he made the record repeat itself. Later that night, his father asks the same question. Playing it cool, Manuel makes up something about lasers and optics. Although he has no idea what his son is saying, Manuel’s dad is proud of him. Manuel goes to bed happy, but he is now sick of the song “La Bamba.” He thinks that next year he might not volunteer for the talent show.
Story 10 Summary: “The Marble Champ”
Shy, straight-A student Lupe Medrano is known for her academic success in elementary school. Winner of the spelling bee and a reading contest, she is also an exceptional piano student, a chess champion, and a science fair award winner. Despite these accomplishments, Lupe is not physically strong and struggles in sports. Frustrated by her physical limitations, she vows to become a champion at one sport, so she turns to marbles. Practicing in her bedroom, she thinks about the playground championship, which is in two weeks. With this deadline in mind, she undertakes exercises to get stronger: pushups on her fingertips for her wrists and eraser squeezes for her thumb. The next day, her hands are so sore that she can barely grasp a marble, so she takes the day off and strategizes with her brother.
The following afternoon, Lupe practices for three hours, then spends another hour squeezing the eraser. Each day, she completes the same routine until she beats her brother and a neighbor at marbles. One day, her mother asks why her thumb is so swollen, and Lupe insists that it is muscle and that she will win the marble championship. Skeptically, her mother tells Lupe’s father about Lupe’s thumb at dinner. Again, Lupe insists that all is well and asks her dad to watch her compete in the championship on Saturday. He agrees and even strings lights in the backyard so that she can practice at night too. He is impressed that she beats her brother so easily.
On Saturday, it is cold and windy. When she arrives, someone asks about her broken thumb. Lupe smiles but does not respond. She wins the first game easily. Feeling sorry for her opponent, Lupe invites her to tag along. Lupe easily beats every foe, and each one sticks around to follow Lupe, so by the time she makes it to the finals, she has a crowd of supporters. Despite a close match, Lupe wins. She hugs her father, compliments her opponent, and poses for a newspaper photo. Lupe then beats the winner of the boys’ division and hoists another trophy. Later, her family goes out to dinner, and everyone congratulates her. Lupe is happy. At home, she places her new trophies with her academic awards and thanks her thumb. Then she soaks it in warm water.
Story 11 Summary: “Growing Up”
Maria, a high school sophomore, believes that she is too old for family vacations. Last year’s trip was dull even though they spent a day at Disneyland; once there, Maria sat on a bench and watched teenagers in nice clothes, feeling “stricken by [her] poverty” (98). She imagined their luxurious lives and compared them to her own more limited reality. This year, Maria’s family plans to visit an uncle in San Jose. She dreads sitting around and being bored, so she informs her father that she will not go. He irately reprimands Maria because his family never had enough money for vacations at all. When she argues, her father claims that she has it easy and is angered by her disrespect. As he talks about his difficult childhood in Mexico, Maria tunes him out and walks away, locking herself in her bedroom. She can hear her father complaining while she flips through a Seventeen magazine.
Meanwhile, Maria’s mother reminds her husband that Maria is a teenager who loves her father; she insists that the girl does not have to go on the trip. She can stay with her nina, or godmother. Although Maria’s father argues, he eventually agrees. Early the next morning, Maria sits alone in her room. She longs to apologize to her father, but she does not want to cry. He, too, wants to speak with her, but he says nothing. Before leaving, Maria’s mother gives her instructions, but when Maria and her father say goodbye, neither looks at the other.
Alone, Maria settles down to eat cereal and watch “American Bandstand.” Despite her freedom, she feels unsettled, worrying that her father will drive recklessly because he is angry. This worry turns into fear. Maria listens to the radio for news of a car accident. Hearing nothing, she sweeps the kitchen and waters the flowers, then calls her friend Becky and makes plans to go to the mall. After getting ready, she walks to Becky’s house and hears a radio report about a traffic accident near San Jose. By the time she arrives, she feels fear and immense guilt. Despite this, the friends still go to the mall. However, Maria hears another radio broadcast that the family in the accident has died. Upset, she pretends that she is worried that she left the water on at home, and departs.
At her house, it is eerily quiet. When the phone rings and she answers it, there is only a clicking sound as she calls out her parents’ names. She anxiously gathers her things and heads to her nina’s house. Despite a quiet evening, Maria frets about her family. For the next four days, she worries, thinking of nice things to do for them. Each night, she listens to the radio and prays that they are safe.
Despite her fears, Maria’s family returns home safely with exciting stories. Maria is upset that they had so much fun while she worried herself sick. In her bedroom, she cries, hugs a doll, and wonders what is wrong with her. That evening, the family goes to a Chinese restaurant, and despite her earlier anger, Maria is happy. She opens a fortune cookie with the message, “You are mature and sensible” (107). Maria thinks it is true, as do her parents. On the ride home, the family sings along to “La Bamba.”
Stories 9-11 Analysis
In “La Bamba” and “The Marble Champ,” both Manuel and Lupe are characterized by their determination to succeed in a highly public forum. Their efforts depict a more lighthearted approach to The Challenges of the Coming-of-Age Journey, even as their ardent wishes for positive responses from the audience reflect their innate need to find a more meaningful form of belonging. In “La Bamba,” for example, after the record player gets stuck during Manuel’s performance, he basks in positive attention from the audience and tries to hide his surprise at people’s belief that the repeating song line was deliberate. Although his inner reluctance to volunteer for the talent show next year reflects his lingering fear of failure and public embarrassment, his thought that he will “probably” not volunteer again nonetheless leaves the door open for additional risks and experiences. This word hints at the lesson Manuel learns: that even if a situation seems to go horribly wrong, it may have positive outcomes. Ultimately, this lesson allows Manuel to embrace the idea of taking risks and trying new things in order to gain a greater degree of maturity.
Lupe’s determination to conquer the marble competition reflects Manuel’s incessant practicing for the talent show, as both children have resolved to carve out a unique space for themselves in the risky public forum of their fellow classmates. Striving to perfect her approach to marbles, Lupe practices nonstop for two weeks, learning the game’s strategy while strengthening her wrist and thumb. She is so rigorous in her training that her thumb becomes swollen, but she persists, determined to win. Notably, her competitive spirit does not make her gloat over her success. Instead, she shows compassion toward her opponents and welcomes them into her circle of friends. This dynamic is explicitly acknowledged when, after winning her first match, Lupe feels “sorry for the girl because she didn’t have anyone to cheer for her. Except for her sack of marbles, she was all alone. Lupe invited the girl, whose name was Rachel, to stay with them” (94). As Manuel’s focus on his own performance revealed, competitors rarely consider their opponents, but Lupe actively shows kindness to those she bests in the game, and this spirit of inclusion marks her considerable maturity.
While Manuel and Lupe’s experiences with public performance teach them important lessons about maintaining their poise under pressure, Maria must contend with a much more personalized version of The Challenges of the Coming-of-Age Journey. As she grapples with her conflicting needs to connect with and pull away from her family members, the experience of being alone teaches her that there is more to life than her own self-centered desires. Ironically, her bid to gain a few days of freedom by refusing to participate in this year’s family vacation turns into a different form of confinement when she finds herself worrying incessantly about her absent family’s safety and agonizing over having made her father angry. While her insistence on staying home arises from childish concerns, her fears for her family indicate her new willingness to consider the needs of others over her own. When she makes a list of ways to be nice to her family and prays for their safety, these private gestures indicate the depths of her changing sentiments. In fact, when her family returns safely, she embraces the statement of a fortune cookie that reads, “You are mature and sensible” (107), and her family’s agreement suggests that she has indeed grown up, as the story’s title indicates.
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