Giant Killers

Hidden behind dark sunglasses, long hair and a beard, a mysterious young man in shorts and sleeveless T-shirt runs the streets of a small town in Middle America. Store fronts are closed. The unemployed, like Darwin Charles, sleep on bus benches no longer on bus routes. The factory around which the town has grown, now struggles to stay open. So why has the runner returned when so many others are escaping?

At the park, he meets Willy Wood, a fatherless little leaguer who, like his teammates, can't catch the baseball. When pressed for information, the runner remains elusive, like the answers to the town's economic woes. Already anxious about her job at the factory, Mary Wood worries about this stranger, who now coaches her son and the winless Dodgers, even when his methods inspire a mid-season winning streak.

Paige Parker Jr., who inherited the factory, runs it with the aid of his most-competent but under-appreciated secretary, Connie Walls. He also...