Heat

“Sometimes he didn’t care whether the game was on television or not, even if his man was on the mound. Michael would take his transistor radio and go outside on the fire escape, the one that was on the side of the building facing 158th Street, and sit facing the Stadium and listen to the crowd as much as he did to the real Yankee announcers, hearing the cheers float out of the top of the place and race straight up the hill to where he sat.” 

This moment establishes Michael’s fire escape as his comfortable, lonely spot. It also calls attention to the distance he feels between himself and the nearby stadium. While Michael can always hear the sounds of the ballpark, he can only use his imagination to transport himself there. This power of imagination, cultivated by Mrs. Cora, helps motivate him to persist in to reach his goals.

“Manny had theories about everything under the sun, Michael knew. Here was another: That Michael hit eighty all the time, even if they didn’t have television cameras or radar guns covering the Modell Monuments, or the Clippers. Manny said that he didn’t need no stinking gun for his Pudge Rodriguez mitt to know how fast Michael was throwing.”

Throwing 80 miles per hour is a major milestone for Michael. He measures himself against the Little League phenom, Danny Almonte, who nearly hit this speed in previous years; before league coaches question his age, this is the only way in which Michael compares himself to Almonte. But without anyone to tell him he can, Michael relies on Manny to test his speed and accomplishment. The two share a single goal. This quotation shows the narrow and single-minded purpose that motivates Michael before outsiders threaten his and Carlos’ quiet lifestyle.

“Michael just nodded and told Mr. Minaya he would see him on Tuesday, told Manny he could call him later, picked up his glove and bat, and started walking fast in the direction of the Stadium. Then he was running, jogging at first, but then sprinting, just wanting to get home to the apartment, afraid to look back, afraid they might still be watching him.”

Michael fears confrontation and uses running to avoid it. Ellie, later, mirrors this evasion, running away from Michael when she fears him discovering her secrets. Crying around his baseball teammates is not allowed. In order to preserve his private emotions, and the existence of private tension, Michael preserves his freedom to be alone.