Calico Joe

Published in 2012, Calico Joe is the first baseball novel written by best-selling American author John Grisham. Set over a thirty-year span beginning in 1973, the story follows Paul Tracey, an eleven-year-old baseball fan and modestly skilled Little League player. Thirty years after Paul witnesses his favorite Major League player, Calico Joe Castle, get “beaned” in the head by a fastball, he still can’t get over the life-altering event. This is because the pitcher who hit Calico Joe in the head is Warren Tracey, Paul’s currently estranged father. When Paul learns Warren is losing a battle to pancreatic cancer, he urges his father to make amends with Calico Joe and find forgiveness before passing away. In addition to exploring father-and-son relationships, the novel touches on themes of redemption, maturity, morality, atonement, and reconciliation. Calico Joe has been called “an enjoyable, heartwarming read that’s not just for baseball fans” by USA Today, and The Washington Post wrote that “Grisham hits it out of the park.” The novel fuses fact and fiction, incorporating made-up characters with real-life ballplayers and Major League Baseball teams.

Narrated from the perspective of Paul Tracey, the story begins in 1973. In New York, eleven-year-old Paul watches the Cubs play the Cardinals on television. The Cubs, a usually inept team, are among six National League contenders for the postseason. That is, until an injury riddles the team’s star first baseman. As a result, a minor leaguer is called up to join the club. The player is a twenty-one-year-old phenom named Joe Castle, nicknamed Calico Joe after his hometown of Calico Rock, Arkansas.

Joe instantly begins his Major League career by achieving homeruns in his first three at bats, hits in all fifteen first plate appearances, and maintaining a batting average north of .500 for six weeks. As Joe begins setting rookie records and leading the Cubs to the top of the standings, he becomes Paul’s favorite player in the league. However, this enrages Paul’s father, Warren Tracey, who happens to be an average journeyman pitcher currently playing for the New York Mets. Warren has achieved nowhere near the success of Joe’s young career, which embitters him greatly. Warren is also a boozy, womanizing jerk who’s “accustomed to getting whatever he wanted.”



The lives of all three characters are drastically changed on August 24, 1973, when the Cubs play the Mets at Shae Stadium. After putting up gaudy numbers over a thirty-eight-game stretch, Joe continues his hot streak by hitting a homerun off of Warren Tracey. In his following at bat, Warren intentionally “beans” Joe in the head. The results are devastating, and the injury ends Joe’s promising career on the spot. The sports world mourns the loss of Joe’s Hall of Fame caliber talent, and public outrage is aimed at Warren for his intentional “head-hunting.”

The novel explores the thirty-year aftermath following the event, revolving around Paul’s inability to forget the fateful moment that changed the lives of his father and his favorite baseball player. Paul stops watching baseball, blaming his father for the incident, and the two become estranged over the years. Joe goes into prolonged comas, suffers a stroke, and spends his remaining days incapacitated. Although partially paralyzed with impeded speech, Joe goes back to Calico Rock to work as a groundskeeper.

Paul’s outlook changes when he learns Warren is succumbing to pancreatic cancer. On the verge of his father’s death, Paul tries to arrange a meeting between Joe and Warren. The meeting is difficult to set up, however. On one hand, Joe has not only moved back to Calico Rock, where he’s looked after by his two brothers, but he’s also become a recluse who is uninterested in conversing with strangers. A local Calico newspaper editor tells Paul that Joe will not want to speak with Warren Tracey. In fact, if Warren is even spotted in town, he could face severe physical assault. The townsfolk have not forgotten what Warren did to their hometown hero.



On the other hand, when Paul visits Warren in Florida where he now lives in retirement, he learns his estranged father is just as crude, crass, and egotistical as ever before. When Paul asks Warren to meet with Joe and reconcile that fateful day in 1973, Warren refuses to even acknowledge any fault of his own, maintaining that he accidentally hit Joe in the head.

Yet, just before cancer permanently immobilizes Warren, he has a change of heart. Warren decides to travel to Calico Rock and meet with Joe Castle. Joe agrees to the meeting as well. During a heartfelt exchange, Warren admits to intentionally “beaning” Joe in the head out of abject spite. Warren offers a sincere apology, asking Joe, “Do you hate me?” Joe responds by saying, “No, you have apologized. You are a greater man than me.” The two men shake hands and make amends.

While Paul feels triumphant over reconciling the relationship between two longtime foes, he can’t quite reconcile his own relationship with Warren in the lead up to his father’s death. Paul gives a final farewell to his dying father, but is unable to give him the tender embrace Warren hoped for in his final moments. Following Warren’s death in Florida, Paul is shocked to see Joe Castle and his brothers attend the funeral. When Warren’s will is opened, it is revealed that Warren left $25,000 to be donated to the baseball field that Joe Castle tends in Calico Rock.



Calico Joe debuted at number one on the April 29, 2012, New York TimesBest Seller list in the Hardcover Fiction category. The novel also debuted at number one on the Publishers Weekly best-seller list for the week of April 19, 2012. In June 2012, 1492 Pictures announced plans to adapt Calico Joe as a motion picture to be written and directed by Chris Columbus. The film is currently still in development.