Boy

Although this small town Is loved by many, Tolland has really gone down and a lot f the town’s leaders want to sell Dilatation land to developers who say they will turn the run down community into new homes, stores, and bigger and better things. Although most of the land has already been sold, Doc Alternative, a huge baseball fan, hasn’t agreed to sell his land. This land happens to be where the baseball park sits. After being cornered by the mayor who begs him to sell the property and the historical group who begs him to not sell the land, Doc decides that he will keep the field If the Wildcats can beat their rival team.

If the Wildcats lose, he will sell the land to the developers who will tear up the field to build new buildings. The Wildcats are scared of losing the challenge. The main reason they are worried is that they cannot hit or catch and the game is only five days away. Dante Del Goat, a former player of the San Diego Padres, decides to coach the team. At the first practice a 12 year old kid named Cruz De la Cruz walks up. No one knows him, but Cruz quickly makes friends with the team.

He can hit every ball that comes his ay and can catch every ball that Is hit or thrown to him. More Importantly, he helps build the team’s confidence, courage, and a new found love for the game. After a week of hard and unusual training, the team is feeling good about the big game, but Cruz De la Cruz disappears. The team quickly realizes that it is up to them to win the game. Worst yet, with Cruz gone, Tom has to play. He is the worst player and as if things couldn’t get worse, he has to pitch because Maria, the main pitcher has been Injured.

After a long and hard game, the Wildcats manage to win, but their excitement was overcome by grief when they found out that Doc Alternative has had a heart attack and died. The team, especially Tom thinks that the field will surely not be saved no matter what. In the end, Tom finds out that Doc wanted him to inherit his estate when he died. The baseball field is safe now because of the win and the generosity of Doc Alternative. The Boy Who Saves Baseball By Sharron The Boy Who Saved Baseball begins by introducing its readers to a fun loving

Although this small town is loved by many, Dilatation has really gone down and a lot baseball fan, hasn’t agreed to sell his land. This land happens to be where the he will keep the field if the Wildcats can beat their rival team. If the Wildcats lose, he will sell the land to the developers who will tear up the field to build new buildings. Way and can catch every ball that is hit or thrown to him. More importantly, he helps build the team’s confidence, courage, and a new found love for the game. Has been injured.

In the book Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathebane there are many obstacles that Mark the protagonist has to overcome. The first of his problems was to get through school in his poor South African ghetto. The second was to achieve his goal and receive a tennis scholarship to an American college. Mark”s father is one of the major antagonist, he was opposed anything to do with Mark getting an education in a school. He was a very traditional man and he didn”t like anything that had to do with the “white man”. He thought it was nonsense to get a whiteman”s education and he wouldn”t provide the money that was necessary to get Mark through school.

Mark was helped through this situation by his Mother who was the person who wanted Mark so desperately to attend school. She decided to go against Mark”s Father and send Mark to school. She then had to get a job which was illegal for her to do so because she didn”t have the required pass from the South African government. With the little money that his mother made and some money that his grandmother gave him he was able to pay for his schooling or at least some of it. He often was without the required materials like a school uniform and books.

This then resulted in Mark being beaten at school. These beatings became so intense and often that Mark thought about dropping out of school. His Mother helped him decide that he should stay in school because she knew that an education was the only way out of their life of poverty. Through the support of Mark”s Mother and grandmother Mark found success in school. He almost always was ranked in the top of his class and received scholarships to continue on in school.

At the end of Mark”s schooling he receives a job offering in South Africa for him to work as a anger of the company, he decides to accept this job for the time being because his family needed the money to send his brothers and sisters to school. Mark end up successfully making it through school and ending up being one of the top in his class. The second major conflict in the book was that Mark wanted to get a scholarship to an American college. Mark first started playing tennis in the ghetto and became the best player in Alexandria. He practiced at a ranch that he found where he made friends with the owner of the tennis ranch.

This was against the law because the owner was a white South African and native Africans could not play with them. Marked learned allot from the owner and gained experience because he was entered in some tournaments by the owner of the tennis ranch. When an international tournament came to South Africa Mark was asked to play in it as a native African player to show to the rest of the world that the apartheid laws separating the native Africans were being changed. This was not true though, the native Africans were being allowed to play in only a few selected tournaments as examples.

Since this was not fair to the native Africans they decided to boycott the event. Mark decided to play in this tournament even though he was considered a traitor to his people and was banned from playing in the native African tournaments for life. This decision changed his life because he met a famous American tennis star which helped his apply to many American colleges. Through Mark”s own inner strength and self determination he achieves his goal and he received a full college scholarship to an American college.

The deficits David Pelzer will have to overcome according to biological and environmental foundations and emotional and social development will deal primarily with the neglect he suffered as a child.

This environmental history will play a major role and an obstacle at being accepted into new schools, new families and in any future job he holds.  He will have to come to terms with the ‘normal’ relationships children and parents have as opposed to his neglected childhood upbringing by not only his mother, but the social service system and foster families.

The way in which David experience mental health is through the actions of his mother.  His mother, Catherine Roerva, tortured David both physically and emotionally by not even considering him a son, or a human being but an ‘it’.

As such her mental health made it impossible for her to raise her child and instead her disease (and her alcoholism) made her torture him, not feed or clothe him and basically not treat him as a son not to mention a person, “SMACK, mother hits me in the face and I topple to the floor.  I know better than to stand there and take the hit.  I learned the hard way that she takes that as an act of defiance, which means more hits or worst of all no food.

I regain my posture and dodge her looks as she screams into my ears”(Pelzer 3).  To a young child, such experiences of mental health make it detrimental to truly experience anything normal for his sense of normalcy is warped due to his exposure of these horrific experiences.

Although David did have one of the worst childhood abuse cases in the state of California (he was caged in the basement, not allowed to eat, and was threatened physically almost daily) he did end up in the child welfare system where he tried to adjust to a new life outside of his mother’s abuse.

Finally at the age of 12 David was taken from his mother’s care thanks to the help of school teachers and other authorities and at that time he entered into the social welfare system through foster care.  In this system David experienced other types of both horrible and kind human activity for which he goes into detail with his other book entitled The Lost Boy: A A Foster Child’s Search for the Love of a Family.

On the issue of biological deficits, David Pelzer may have to face the fact that his mother neglected him after he was born,

Genetic counseling is a communication process designed to help couples assess their

Chances of giving birth to a baby with a hereditary disorder and choose the best course of action in view of risks and family goals.

As such, David’s mother, given the choice may not have had her son because of her own actions which was detrimental to his health.  In David’s case, it is not a hereditary disorder but more of an environmental disorder that he has in him.

Works Cited

Pelzer, David. (1995).   A Boy Called It.  HCI. 1995.

Wall, Charles M. (April, 1975). Child Abuse: A Societal Problem             with Educational        Implications. Peabody Journal of Education. 52 (3). 222-225.