“The shortstop in Hutch processed all that in an instant. Only he wasn’t the shortstop. Darryl was.”

The repetition of shortstop reinforces its value. Hutch’s hero, Derek Jeter, plays shortstop, and Hutch played it until Darryl came along. The narrator lets the reader think Hutch is still the shortstop. This adds to Hutch’s unreliability, but it also emphasizes the importance the position still holds for Hutch.

“If you followed baseball the way he did and nobody he knew followed baseball the way he did, you knew that a great shortstop was worth his weight in gold.”

Baseball consumes Hutch’s life, and the hyperbolic diction emphasizes Hutch’s infatuation with baseball—“nobody” knows baseball like him. His keen awareness of the sport pressures him to stay at shortstop, the golden position, where he hopes to prove his worth.

“Today, he said, he thought he was getting a ride from a friend of his mom’s, but the friend had never shown up.”

Darryl’s reason for arriving late to practice is not an excuse, but the truth. His explanation hints at his unsettled home life and gives the reader a clue that having amazing talents doesn’t automatically produce a struggle-free life.