Fast Pitch

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses themes surrounding racism and sexism in sports, including intimidation. Additionally, the source text uses outdated and offensive terms for Black people, replicated in this guide only in direct quotes of the source material.

When Shenice’s father unveils her great-grandfather’s trunk full of baseball equipment and memories, she discusses how she came to believe that “the trunk wasn’t an actual trunk. It was a symbol of my grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s legacies. And I held the literal key” (26). Before seeing it with her own eyes, Shenice didn’t believe it existed, despite having received its key after her grandfather’s death. Stone draws explicit attention to the symbolic nature of the trunk: To Shenice, the trunk symbolizes her family’s legacy in baseball, but in the narrative structure, the trunk represents her family’s secrets.

She first investigates the trunk and notes two specific items: “1. A framed black-and-white photo of who I assume is Great-Grampy JonJon [...] and 2. What looks like a fancy leather journal” (27). The photo—a memory of JonJon and Jack—holds the secret to finding the missing Joe DiMaggio glove; the journal holds JonJon’s firsthand accounts of his experiences. All the keys to the Lockwoods’ secrets are within the trunk, but Shenice must gather more information and learn how to approach the information she acquires.