62 pages • 2-hour read
The Art of Fielding
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Chapters 64-72Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 64 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of antigay bias, disordered eating, mental illness, addiction, substance use, and sexual content.
Pella swims, goes to work, and receives cooking lessons. Henry is still at her apartment, an uncertain arrangement. He’s deeply depressed and barely eats. Today is Saturday, the day of the final. Guert calls Pella to tell her that he’ll be there. Henry and Pella have sex to comfort each other.
Chapter 65 Summary
Guert heads to the field. He hasn’t yet seen Owen play and is eager to do so. Owen complains about his new facemask. He’s a calm batter, and Guert admires his stance. He hits a double, breaking the pitcher’s no-hitter. The other team’s fans are rude to Guert, thinking that the Westish students are wealthy and preppy compared to the state school kids. Guert chats with the opposing side’s parents. When Schwartz steps up to the plate, he hits a grand slam, and the Harpooners take the lead.
The Westish players and parents are ecstatic. The athletic director, Duane, finds Guert to celebrate going to nationals. Duane points out that Schwartz won them the victory, and Guert wants to discuss Schwartz further.
Chapter 66 Summary
Alcohol is banned from NCAA locker rooms, but Schwartz smuggles some in. Schwartz asks Owen if he has any pain pills left from his surgery, and he immediately takes three Percocet pills. He contemplates how, in moments of celebration like these, his enthusiasm is usually abbreviated as he considers how they’ll win the next game, but even now, he can’t focus on the enjoyment of planning because Henry’s absence is distracting him.
Schwartz feels inferior as he thinks about his lack of natural talent in comparison to Henry, lamenting that his work ethic has let him down. Working with Henry was the closest he has ever come to achieving perfection because Henry was capable of it.
Rick calls Schwartz back to join the team. Schwartz hopes that Henry will be there, but he isn’t. The team celebrates in a big circle, swaying together.
Chapter 67 Summary
After the team returns from the game, Owen heads to Guert’s house, where they have sex. Guert listens for Pella, feeling guilty that Owen is there. Owen asks Guert to tell him about the house, and Guert excitedly discusses the projects he has planned for it. He even plans to finish penning a novel there. Owen approves of the plan. Guert realizes that in bed, he adopts poses that he associates with women.
Owen points out the environmental resources necessary to heat a big house. Guert wonders if Owen is picturing himself living in the house and then wonders if Owen is motivated to have an affair with Guert so that he can ask Guert more about environmental aims that Westish might take. Guert hopes that buying the house will encourage Pella to stay near Westish. Owen discusses his vision of the future.
Chapter 68 Summary
Henry washes dishes in Pella’s apartment. When her roommates are home, he hides in Pella’s room and pees in a Gatorade bottle. Henry thinks of himself as Odysseus trapped on Calypso’s island in The Odyssey.
Henry has lost his appetite and struggles to eat or drink. He decides to stop drinking coffee. The front door opens, and Henry fears conversation. Pella says that they need to talk, and she tells him that he can’t stay at her apartment all day. She asked Chef Spirodocus if Henry could come to work. She also offers Henry her antidepressants. He struggles to find the words to communicate to Pella how he’s feeling. He wishes that more aspects of life could be like baseball, dependent on moving rather than speaking.
Henry tries to picture what Pella will look like in 10 years and considers that she’s much better for Schwartz than for him. Pella tells him that because he won’t take care of himself, he must leave. When Henry arrives at his dorm, Owen is gone.
Chapter 69 Summary
Schwartz and Izzy, another player, stay late after practice. Schwartz has started trying to mentor Izzy the way he mentored Henry. Duane congratulates Schwartz on the team’s success, noting that he’s already basically a coach, and offers him the position of assistant football coach and assistant baseball coach. Duane has been authorized to offer Schwartz a salary that Schwartz thinks the school can’t afford. Schwartz turns him down, though he has no other job offers. Duane tells him to seriously reconsider; the school has no other candidates.
Chapter 70 Summary
Guert takes care of administrative business with Contango by his side. He watches the campus, thinking about how he can’t wait to surprise Pella with the news of the house. They’ve been communicating only via email. He hopes that Schwartz will accept the coaching offer. He admires Schwartz and recognizes the same love for Westish in him. Guert is also excited for commencement, when he’s usually a beloved speaker.
Owen calls Guert to tell him that they won the first game of the championship tournament. The final game is tomorrow in South Carolina. Owen is more excited about this game than he’s ever been; it will be live on ESPN. Owen asks Guert to check on Henry. Then, someone knocks at Guert’s door.
Chapter 71 Summary
The dean of Student Affairs enters with Bruce Gibbs, from the board of trustees. They confront Guert about his affair with Owen. A parent saw them when they were checking into the inn. Bruce investigated further and learned that Guert had visited Owen’s dorm. They ask him to resign to prevent the school from falling under scrutiny. Owen hasn’t had to pay tuition or housing fees, which makes Guert look more suspicious.
Guert asks if the parent told Genevieve. Bruce tells him that the parent isn’t with Genevieve in South Carolina. Guert realizes that Henry’s parents must have been the ones who reported him. He also asks what will happen to Pella after he resigns, and they assure him that she won’t have to pay tuition.
Chapter 72 Summary
Guert goes to Henry’s dorm, which is a mess. Henry is asleep in the bathtub. Suddenly, Guert feels chest pain. He finds clean clothes of Owen’s for Henry to wear. Pella has been leaving soup for Henry, but he hasn’t been eating any of it. Guert wonders if he should call a counselor for Henry. He tells Henry that he bought a ticket for him to fly to South Carolina tomorrow. Henry weeps, and Guert comforts him. He gets Henry to eat a little bit.
Chapters 64-72 Analysis
Henry’s breakdown thematically embodies the destructive consequences of Perfectionism and Its Consequences. His entire identity centered on his precociousness as shortstop, and its compromise traps Henry in a state of paralysis. He can’t function outside the structured world of baseball. He hides in Pella’s apartment, isolating himself and avoiding contact with everyone but her. He refuses to eat and barely drinks. Pella considers herself “the wrong caretaker, or coach, for someone so depressed: she [is] too indulgent, too empathetic” (397).
Schwartz struggles with Henry’s downfall. The contrast between Henry’s downfall and Schwartz’s moment of self-reflection illustrates how perfectionism can imprison those who pursue it: “Working with Henry was the closest he’d ever come, because Henry knew only one thing, wanted only one thing, and his single-mindedness made him—made both of them—pure” (408). His relentless drive to build a winning team and mentor Henry has cost Schwartz his own well-being. His reliance on painkillers and his difficulty in celebrating victories reveal the toll of constantly striving for more. Schwartz’s conversation with Duane, in which he receives an offer of a coaching position but turns it down, reflects his struggle to define success outside the rigid framework he has always followed.
Guert and Owen’s relationship reaches new heights as Guert considers a future in which he and Owen could more publicly be a couple. Deciding to buy a house gives Guert a new lease on life, showing him that he’s capable of being more than an academic living in a dorm. His confrontation with the trustees and the realization that he and Owen have been discovered is frightening, but he finds a sense of freedom in the knowledge that he’ll no longer have to love Owen in total secrecy. His willingness to risk his career for Owen reflects an evolution in his character from living within rigid expectations to embracing his true self, even at great cost.
The novel uses sex as a thematic component of Identity and Self-Discovery. In this section, the sexual relationships between Guert and Owen, Pella and Schwartz, and Pella and Henry all have different intentions. Owen’s confidence in both his sexuality and his place in the world contrasts sharply with Guert’s new uncertainty (and with Henry’s loss of sense of self). Owen’s insistence on more than just a physical connection shows that he views sex as a means of establishing a deeper emotional connection; through this connection, Owen seeks authenticity.
Pella and Schwartz’s relationship, while still fraught with uncertainty, suggests the possibility of building something lasting on a foundation of mutual understanding rather than dependency. What defines the relationship between them is more emotional and mental compatibility than sex, whereas Pella’s relationship with Henry is purely sexual: They each seek out sex as a form of comfort but don’t feel totally at ease around each other; Henry isn’t even comfortable with Pella seeing him naked.
Westish College itself becomes a symbol of both opportunity and limitation. Henry’s descent into depression and isolation mirrors Guert’s undoing. Both men, once defined by their roles at Westish, now confront what remains when those identities are stripped away. The baseball team’s success contrasts with the moral failures of its leadership, particularly as Guert is forced to resign. His resignation represents the broader consequences of personal choices intersecting with institutional expectations. The scrutiny he faces highlights the ways that power and privilege operate within academic spaces. Meanwhile, Schwartz’s potential future at Westish as a coach presents a different kind of reckoning—one in which he must decide whether to remain tied to the institution or forge a new path.
Guert and Schwartz both demonstrate nurturing modes of masculinity. Guert’s paternal care for Henry shows him behaving not as an administrator but as a paternal figure deeply concerned about a child’s unraveling. Schwartz demonstrates this concern as he tries to track down Henry and keep Sophie safe. He also demonstrates it when he finds Sophie in the bar, takes her back to Henry’s room to sleep, and sleeps on the floor next to her to make sure that she’s okay. Both Guert and Schwartz view themselves with considerable authority but are determined to use this authority to protect those around them.
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