Q&A: Author Nic Stone’s latest book is a retelling of The Sandlot — but with a team of all-Black softball players

Let me tell you: I had a moment when I stumbled upon a book cover that featured a Black girl in a backward cap tossing a softball a few weeks ago.

That girl could have been me. It was me, 20 years ago. Except there were no books that I knew of at the time that featured softball-playing tween girls, let alone Black tween girls. I knew I had to read it.

New York Times bestselling author Nic Stone’s latest novel “Fast Pitch” is a retelling of “The Sandlot” geared toward middle-grade readers. It is the story of Shenice Lockwood, a 12-year-old girl who is captain of her softball team — an all-Black softball team, a first in Georgia’s Dixie Youth Softball Association.

Shenice comes from a long line of ballplayers, going back to her great-grandfather, who played in the Negro Leagues. One day, she discovers a family secret — her great-grandfather was falsely accused of stealing a glove that once belonged to Joe DiMaggio. The accusation dashed his hopes to be among the first Black men to play Major League Baseball. Shenice takes it upon herself to clear his name — while trying to lead her team to a state championship.

In her own ball-playing days, Stone was always the only Black girl on her team. “Something that I’ve learned since writing the book is that we are here, we just don’t cross paths very often,” she said.

It was her own experience, coupled with her love of “The Sandlot” and her desire to see more stories about Black female athletes that inspired her to write the book.

The following is a conversation with Stone, edited for length and clarity.

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Did your love of “The Sandlot” lead you to softball, or was it the other way around?

I mean, they kind of co-existed. I was in third grade when “The Sandlot” came out and by then we used to spend summers playing baseball in my grandma’s backyard, not even using an actual bat. We had like, whatever you have that you could hit a ball with and the bases were just different points around granny’s backyard. Once I got old enough, I decided I wanted to try softball and I guess “The Sandlot” just kind of like, amplified that love of that particular style of sport.

How long did you play?

I played for three or four years. I think my last season, I was a junior in high school, I’m pretty sure. At that point, I got really serious about competitive cheerleading and was basically doing cheer stuff year-round. But, yes, I look back fondly. Those bat swinging days.

Were you into sports books at the time? Were you looking for a “Fast Pitch” kind of book when you were that age?

Not necessarily, and that’s because I didn’t know a “Fast Pitch” book could even exist. It’s like when you don’t see something, it just never would have crossed my mind that there could be a book about girls who played softball. At that point, I was obsessed with Louis Sachar, so like all the Wayside School books. And Judy Blume. I was into Harriet the Spy, I read a lot of mystery books and yeah, the idea of sports in a book was like, where they do that at?

I’m glad that this exists now and that girls, all girls who play softball will feel represented because yes Shenice is Black, but there aren’t a whole lot of books about girls playing softball, period.

One thing that I thought was interesting and that you kind of established right off the top of the book is that this is a girl who’s continuing her family’s ball-playing legacy. Three men, and then this girl. She’s got a brother; he is zero percent interested. I assume you did that on purpose?

Yes, absolutely. Every chance I get to drop a really badass female character into something that people consider male-dominated, I’m going to take it. This is why I have a lot of fun writing the Shuri books for Marvel Comics, because she’s a genius. Shuri, the little sister of the Black Panther, is the smartest person on Earth. So being able to put her in these situations where even these grown men around her are like, “what?” and she solves the problem in 30 seconds. I love being able to show what Black girls are made of, especially in places where you would expect a boy to be the main character.

Is there a reason you put Shenice on an all-Black team instead of having her as one of the only Black girls on her team?

I really wanted to write something I’ve never seen. I really also like highlighting things that are absurd, that people don’t realize are absurd until they’re highlighted. Why would it be history-making for a team with a Black girl to go to the state tournament, let alone an all-Black team? Like, why is that? It’s 2021. Why is this still making history? So kind of pointing out absurdity by creating scenarios that are not only totally possible, but that should make perfect sense considering the time in which we live. It’s actually a really good way to get people thinking about why the world is the way that it is and, what do we need to do to make it different and better?

What I also thought was cool is that this story kind of weaves in different parts of baseball history — her great-grandfather was in the Negro Leagues, the glove belonged to Joe DiMaggio. Baseball and softball are such tradition-bound sports, so I thought it was interesting to introduce those elements.

Any time I have an opportunity to embed some sort of history into a work of fiction, I’m going to take it, largely because here in these United States of America, people really be buggin’ when it comes to teaching actual history, as evidenced by a number of pieces of legislation that have been passing all over the country, kind of outlawing the teaching of actual history.

The most interesting thing to me about writing “Fast Pitch” was coming to realize that there are things that are not on the Internet, which sounds ridiculous, right? We have become so accustomed to being able to find anything on the Internet, that me not being able to find the rosters of Negro League teams across the United States, at first, I was like, “what?” But then it really opened my eyes to the fact that there’s a lot of history out here that just hasn’t even been recorded. So recognizing even that with the Negro Leagues, there’s so many great baseball players we will never know about because nobody thought they were worthy of being recorded in history.

The team goes play a game in another town and they have that “I’m in danger” moment when they’re like, “I don’t know how this is going to go.” (The girls spot Confederate flags on their drive to the field.) What went into the decision of putting that scene in there? I think we’ve all had that moment where you kind of look around and you’re like …

Oh boy.

Yeah, exactly.

Even just the experience of driving through Tennessee, like yesterday as a Black person, the things that you will see driving through the state of Tennessee, there’s like a billboard of a Confederate flag and you pass these homes with giant ones in their yard. It’s just one of those things where, like, the more people I hear say, “oh, racism is a thing of the past, it’s not real,” I’m like, “oh, OK.” It’s important to me to make sure people know that this stuff still happens. This is not this isn’t some relic of the past.

I read this book and I was like, this is equal parts wonderful and also a bit sad that I still that I find this relatable, you know? I think about someone who is 20 years younger than me, and I’m like, oh, you can still relate to some of this stuff? Gives you that lump in your throat a little bit when you’re like, we’re still doing this. Excellent. Love that for us.

I just happened to open the book to the part where Shenice sees Tanisha, like the one Black girl on the other team, and she’s like, got all these questions going through her head, like, do people try to touch her hair, do they mispronounce her name? Like, there’s all of these things — do they ask questions about her edges when they frizz up, like, these are things! Still!

Was there any part of you that was worried about writing this book, because there are so few books about Black girls who play sports, or girls who play sports, that it might not find an audience? Or is there the flip side that, you knew there’s an audience because you were someone who might have liked this book at that age?

I mean, it was less either one of those and more like, who doesn’t love “The Sandlot?” Like, that was my thinking when I was working on this book. Even if you are not a person who was into softball, you don’t like watching girls play sports, if I use the word “The Sandlot,” you’re going to be interested. It’s a cult classic. I have yet to meet somebody, when I say I decided to write a Sandlot retelling about a softball team of little Black girls, that their ears didn’t perk up.

(Photo: Random House Children’s Books)