Deacon King Kong

Baseball is an important part of the Cause community in Deacon King Kong. Sportcoat is involved in the games between the Cause Houses and other housing projects as an umpire and coaches Deems in the game. Deems is a talented player who turns aside from his aspirations of playing baseball professionally to become involved with the drug trade. The games also serve as a community gathering space for the residents of the housing projects. It is significant that baseball mostly serves as a memory for the Cause residents at the time of the story, as drug use has begun to take over the community: “Kids who had once bragged about their baseball games had become sullen and silent, the baseball fields empty” (294). This indicates that baseball serves as a symbol of the next generation’s ability to prosper and thrive, and as drugs stifle those abilities, the well-being of the next generation is threatened. Baseball ultimately wins out in Deems’s life, signaling a larger optimism about the young people in the community.

For older men like Hot Sausage and Sportcoat, baseball becomes a symbol of their protective feelings about their community. Sportcoat actively mentors and guides Deems to encourage him to choose baseball, a decision that would have kept him from falling into poverty, dependence, and danger as a drug dealer. The protective gear that Sportcoat wears as an umpire reflects this protective role. Furthermore, when Hot Sausage wears Sportcoat’s umpire uniform, the gear protects him from Haroldeen’s shot: “The bullet hit from the side and the chest protector slowed it. Otherwise, he would have been cooked,” says Potts (263). In this way, baseball moves beyond a surface-level diversion to an important expression of protection, well-being, and community.