Clutch

Twelve-year-old Joey Grosser doesn’t have time for games. Not since his pa dropped dead and left Joey, his ma and his little brother with nothing but bills and a money-losing corner grocery store in Montreal.Twenty-seven-year-old Jackie Robinson only has time for games. Ever since he agreed to ignore the racial hatred and play ball for the Montreal Royals.Joey vows to earn money any way he can to get his family out of their dump of a neighborhood, where rats nibble on babies’ ears and the air smells like liver and onions. But by summer’s end, Joey is worse off than when he started and turns to the wrong man for help. As Joey’s bar mitzvah quickly approaches, one decision will determine whether he lives long enough to celebrate becoming a man – and to watch Jackie Robinson make baseball history.