Michael is a 12-year-old star pitcher who plays for the Clippers, a Little League team in the Bronx. He is generally quiet but deeply loving. Despite these personal qualities, most people know Michael as a boy with “some arm” (5). Anyone who watches him pitch can recognize it, but it also attracts negative attention.

When Michael’s talents frustrate his opponents, their coaches team up to try and bar him from Little League by demanding a copy of his birth certificate. In a previous year, another immigrant boy’s age turned out to be false, and so Michael’s immigrant status becomes an easy way to exclude him from the game. All of this negative attention makes Michael worry that his and his brother’s secrets will be discovered.

Michael must realize, as he frantically works to avoid separation from his still-underage brother, that those who care for him can help him out of trouble. Although Carlos ends up in trouble for his desperate attempts to keep the brothers financially afloat, Michael, his best friend Manny, and Mrs. Cora manage to make a series of good moves to keep the family together. Meanwhile, Michael learns perseverance through loneliness. He does not achieve his “whole dream” (212), in which his father can return from the dead, yet he ultimately reaches his goal of playing at

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