Review of "The Southpaw," by Donal Hamilton Haines

Review of

The Southpaw, by Donal Hamilton Haines


Four out of five stars

 This story copyrighted in 1931 is a look back into how adolescent sports fiction was written at that time. From the title, it appears to be primarily a book about sports, but the main theme is about the development of strong cliques among adolescent boys and how it can become destructive of normal social development and structure.

 Bob Griswold is a boy with a powerful left arm that makes him a quality baseball pitcher. His father is a civil engineer and wants his son to follow in his footsteps, which means that Bob needs to take many quality courses in math and science. Like most people in the country at that time, the Griswold’s are short of money, so when Bob is to attend high school, all they can afford is to send Bob to Hillton Academy. It is a school in a small isolated town, although the teachers are excellent.

 Greg Elliot is also a student there and he has a group of henchmen, including a muscle man. He will stop at little in order to maintain power and control over the other students and he takes an immediate dislike to Bob. Not being a coward, Bob fights back in the literal and figurative sense while trying to be the team’s ace pitcher.

 To modern readers, there are several things that will seem odd. The speech patterns, boys wearing a coat and tie to classes and dinner, no mention of females and some aspects of the social interaction. Yet, it is fundamentally a story about overcoming great and unfair opposition in order to be a success and win the almost incidental big game at the end.