Baseball novelist John H. Ritter grew up playing "one-on-one" hardball with his brothers in the dry, dusty hill country of eastern San Diego County, near the Mexican border. "That sparse and wild landscape seeps into all of my work," says John, "whether the story's set in the woods of Ohio or the streets of New York. You'll find references to it in phrases such as, 'I followed a deer trace through the thicket to see what all the caterwauling was about (Choosing Up Sides).' Or, 'Of course, there were some big differences living in New York. Like having this hard sidewalk under my shoes all the time, instead of a powdery, dirt path (Over The Wall).'"
"I grew up in a baseball family," says John. "But we were also a family of musicians and mathematicians, house painters and poets. My dad was a sports writer in Ashtabula, Ohio, who moved the family out west, just before I was born, to become Sports Editor for The San Diego Union."
But when John was four, his mother died of breast cancer, and his father resettled the family in the rural, San Diego back country.
"One thing I remember about my mom is that she sang to us constantly, making up a song for each of her four children that fit our personalities perfectly. So from her, I got a sense of how to capture a person's spirit in a lyrical phrase."
Growing up in a sparse, mountainous region also helped stretch John's imagination. "Out in that country," he says, "the neighbor kids lived so far away, my brothers and I developed a half-real, half-imaginary game where we pitched and hit the ball, then dreamed up the rest, keeping the score, game situations, and full, major league line-ups in our heads." Those games proved to be good practice for dreaming up stories, too, such as Choosing Up Sides, John's award-winning first novel.
Set in 1921 Southern Ohio, it's the dramatic and inspirational story of Luke Bledsoe, a left-handed preacher's boy who is forced by his family's religious beliefs to go through life right-handed. When Luke discovers he could be a tremendous baseball pitcher—but only with his forbidden left arm—the trouble begins.
"The story was inspired by events in my childhood, having grown up during the great Civil Rights era and being confused by the notion of prejudice. I also became aware of the bias left-handers sometimes faced, such as being forced to write with their right hands, and I was mystified by that as well."
However, as a left-handed pull hitter, he'd learned something else. "In the baseball world, the lefty was treasured—pitchers and hitters. So what I did in Choosing Up Sides was to place Luke smack in the middle of these two opposing worlds and let the story unfold from there."
John's new novel, Over The Wall, "is a response to the devastation our country's leaders put us and the world through during the Vietnam War, the effects of which are still being felt by many, like a festering wound. But it's a healing book, exploring through one boy's eyes exactly what it takes to affect a healing."
Bob Dylan, the songwriter, also inspired John to write songs all through high school. "Probably more of my mom's influence," he says, "but I liked how Dylan wrote about life from a working class perspective, often with religious overtones—a blend of gospel and blues."
After high school, John attended the University of California at San Diego, where he met his wife, Cheryl, now an elementary school teacher. Like their grown daughter, Jolie, who runs her own espresso cafe, John has always preferred the self-employed life, having been a custom painting contractor for 25 years. "Even so," he says, "I always 'booked' my calendar with time to write."
And in 1994, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Il
