The Art of Fielding - Chad Harbach

             
              In The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, Henry Skrimshander is a small town boy with a gift for baseball. For one of his birthdays, his dad lets him go to the local sporting store and pick out whatever he wants. Henry picks out the glove he has been eyeing for months, and names it “Zero”. Whileplaying summerball, Henry is discovered by a man named Mike Schwartz, who tells him all about how Westish College could use a player like him. A few weeks later Henry is offered a scholership to Westish to play baseball, which he happily accpets. Throughout his college playing career, he ties Aparicio Rodriguez for most continuous games without an error. This is a milestone achievement and Henry starts to receive calls and offers from agents, who talk about him going as soon as the third round in the draft. Right about this time in the book, Chad Harbach starts to build suspense.

                The suspense starts with a routine ground ball hit right at Henry. All he has to do is field and throw for the out, something he’s done perfectly for countless games. When Henry releases the ball though, it soars high and into the dugout, striking Owen in the face. Owen is knocked out cold and rushed to the hospital. Henry replays the throw in his head over and over. The look on Owen’s face haunts Henry and he hesitates now when making throws in games. This jump starts a string of games full of errors. "Another error, his fifth in a week; they were piling up like bodies in a horror movie" (214) is a good example. Some errors even caused the Harpooners to lose.

The pressure really starts to build as scouts aren’t being impressed and the Harpooners’ title hopes start to fade. Henry realizes he is dragging the team down, and coach replaces him with his backup. He begins to second guess himself, and tells coach, "...I'd like to resign from the team"(366). This point in the book is where the suspension is at a peak, because the author is wondering whether or not Henry will give up on his dreams. Chad Harbach does a good job building up this feeling with all of the errors Henry commits.