Sora Katsumi (or Katsumi Sora if you’re Japanese, where family name precedes one’s given name) is introduced a few chapters into the book as she meets the Yakuza boss, Hokusai, at a Tokyo coffee shop in the Shinagawa neighborhood. Sora is challenged with a serious heart condition, limiting her in a number of ways. She also is forced to face uncomfortable facts about her family’s past. Sora’s name, as is later revealed in the book, means “the heavens.” She loves looking at the crystal clear nighttime sky in the Sierra Nevada mountains. She also inherits her love of art from her mother, Shinobu. She talks about the Hokone Open Air Museum and a work called Babel by the artist Cildo Meireles. The book uses some fictional license to indicate that Babel is on display at the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art (MOMAT). Babel’s home at the time of this writing is actually Tate Modern in London. James makes Sora blush by comparing her to the acclaimed Japanese film star Erika Karata (altered photo seen above). With her boundless enthusisasm, even with the health challenges she has, Sora inspires James and shows him how to be much more than he thinks he is.

As the main protagonist in A Bad Hand, James Webb is an amalgam of at three different people. His passion for baseball and experience as a minor league bat boy was inspired by my son. Like James, nothing could get by that guy at third base. He wasn’t the fastest guy on the team and he never hit for power, but he was extremely tough, willing to take a ball of his chest or his face before letting someone get to first base. He was also a very tough out when he came to plate. He would always take pitchers deep into pitch counts. The highlight I love to revisit most often is probably bet told in his words:

“My first competitive baseball coach taught me how to bunt. We practiced bunting quite a bit and he would often tell us that bunting would win us a game if we executed it properly. I listened to my coach, but I’m not sure I really believed him. Bunting seems so simple and rarely gets shown on highlight reels, but sure enough, later in the season, I was put in a position to impact the game significantly by bunting. I think I was 13 years old. We were playing in the Las Vegas Big League Dreams tournament. Our team was down by one run, with a runner on 3rd, and one out in the top of the last inning. As I was stepping up to the plate, my coach relayed the sign to squeeze. A squeeze is a bunt play where the runner on 3rd steals home while the batter attempts to bunt the ball. It is extremely important for the batter to execute the play and bunt the ball no matter where the pitch is thrown. If the ball reaches the catcher’s mitt, the runner at 3rd is hung out to dry and will almost always be tagged out. As the pitch was coming in, I prepared to bunt the ball. To my horror, the ball flew passed me and ended up in the catcher’s mitt. My heart sank as I saw my teammate on 3rd run towards home plate. I hung my head in shame for a split second but when I looked back up, miraculously my teammate had not been tagged out. My teammate slammed on the brakes and started running back toward third base. During this Houdini-like escape, the catcher attempted to throw the ball to the third baseman but didn’t hit his mark. The ball trickled into the outfield and my teammate turned around and reached home plate safely.

I was relieved that my mistake did not cost our team the game, but I was disappointed in myself and so was my coach. I learned some new vocabulary words that day when my coach expressed his opinions about my terrible performance. That moment, coming face to face with a grown man yelling at me scarred me for life, but in a good way. I was not going to make the same mistake twice.

After that game, I diligently practiced how to effectively bunt in every scenario possible. I did this throughout little league and into high school. I developed a routine where I would bunt three balls before every round at batting practice. I would bunt one ball down the third base line, one down the first base line, and one anywhere in play no matter where the pitch was thrown.

Sometimes in practice, I wouldn’t be satisfied with where I placed the ball, so I would start my 3-bunt routine all over again. At the beginning of my senior year, one of my teammates who was growing impatient with my routine and waiting for his turn to practice batting, yelled through the cage, “Why are you bunting? You’re wasting our time!” After hearing his snarky remarks, I tried to teach him what my little league coach taught me. I turned around and said, “You just wait. One day a bunt is going to win us a game.” That game was the quarterfinals of the high school state baseball tournament. I came up to the plate in the bottom of the fourth inning, with no outs, the bases loaded, and our team winning by one run. The game was back and forth and it was difficult for any team to get even one run. I looked at my head coach and he gave me the squeeze sign. This time I was prepared to execute. As the pitch was coming in, I did everything that I had been practicing for years. I angeled my bat slightly to the third baseline and saw the ball make perfect contact with my bat. As I sprinted off to first base, I saw the baseball fly over my head into the outfield. The pitcher had overthrown first base. The ball sailed into right field, allowing me to run safely to first, then second, and then third. I did not win any batting awards or an MVP, but I might be the only player ever to have 3 RBIs on a bunt in the Utah State high school tournament. We ended up winning the game.”