Baseball has an extensive impact on all the characters in the novel, although this influence varies from moment to moment and takes on both negative and positive connotations. Cole’s compulsion to focus on baseball while actively ignoring his family has a profoundly negative impact on Brian’s well-being, and Cole’s fixation on the game ultimately ruined his own marriage and costs him any chance at developing a positive relationship with his son. At times, Brian’s own passion for baseball also has an adverse influence, as is demonstrated when Kenny attributes Brian’s hitting slump to his excessive focus on baseball. As he tells Brian, “Maybe even you can’t eat, sleep, and drink baseball every single hour of every single day of your whole life” (128). As baseball begins to subsume Brian’s identity, the protagonist must find a solution to regain some balance in his life.

Along these same lines, Lupica’s narrative turns baseball into a universe unto itself, and Liz actively avoids becoming a part of this dynamic by setting boundaries and maintaining a firm separation from the game. When Liz drops Brian off at Comerica Park, she stays in her car, “[l]ike this [i]s as close to Comerica—to this world—as she want[s] to get” (49).