Choosing Up Sides Author:John H. Ritter Baseball is the sport, but personal salvation hangs in the balance for 13-year-old Luke, whose father has been newly installed to shepherd the flock of the Holy River of John the Baptist Church in Crown Falls, OH. Pa's fundamentalist beliefs hold sports to be as "sinful as dancing." — He's fought a long, difficult battle to &quo... more »t;cure" Luke of his left-handedness (including tying Luke's left arm to his side with a belt for most of six or seven years) because the Bible clearly tells him that the left hand is of the devil. Luke admires and respects his father, but also fears him. Temptations arrive in the form of baseball for which Luke's left arm seems predestined for greatness, and Annabeth Quinn, a too-good-to-be-true girl who pushes him to play because in 1921, in this place, she cannot. Further influenced by his Uncle Micah, a flashy newspaper sportswriter, Luke sees Babe Ruth play a local exhibition game and plays enough ball himself to incur his father's wrath. Long a trapper and fisherman, Luke experiences an epiphany when he frees a snared rabbit and clearly perceives his own entrapment. Following a vicious beating by his pa that cracks his pitching arm, the boy resolves to run away. . .« less