Content Warning: This section discusses the death of a parent.

For Wes Bennett’s character, baseball is symbolic of identity. He has been playing baseball since he was a young boy, and the sport was the primary way that he spent time with his dad. His dad also pushed him to do well in the sport throughout his childhood and adolescence. Playing baseball is, therefore, entangled with how Wes understands himself. Playing for the Bruins also validates Wes’s identity because he would “rather not play than play [for anyone] else” (123). The sport and the team grant Wes a sense of predictability and familiarity. Baseball is a way for him to feel grounded in the present and conceptualize his future.

The cemetery where Wes’s father and Liz Buxbaum’s mother are buried is symbolic of grief. When Liz visits her mom here, she talks to her mom. She is overcome by sorrow even though she lost her mom years prior. Her emotional response to visiting the cemetery conveys her lingering sadness over the death of her mom. Wes has a similarly charged emotional experience when he visits his dad’s headstone while back home in Omaha. The setting reawakens the characters’ sorrow over their parents’ death and challenges them to confront their grief.