Death of the Right Fielder by Stuart Dybek

　　Right at the beginning, something is strange. Even though the right fielder is dead, no player notices his death for a while, because the position is so minor that nobody pays attention to the right fielder, the narrator says. This is a strange way of beginning a story. That means the right fielder is not a real boy, but a metaphorical existence, metaphor or a symbol of youth before you become seventeen years old.

　　At the end of the story, the players “walk back—getting on to supper, getting on to the end of summer vacation” till they become 35 and over the hill. And around forty, they have completely lost youth, which has been buried under the ground. Longing and missing youth is the theme of the story.