The main character, Danny "Kiss of the Wolf" Bacigalupo, a baseball player from Chicago's North Side with "blood on his bat."
Profoundly influenced by the accidental death of a neighborhood kid during a ball game (one of Danny's line drives struck him in the Adam's apple), Danny "suffers" the schizophrenic presence of the dead boy throughout high school, the minor leagues, and major league baseball.
Bacigalupo's story begins with a flippant, jocular tone; however, it quickly hits a comfortable, engaging stride, describing the thrills, agonies, and occasional epiphanies of growing up Catholic, Italian, poor, and naturally athletic.
-John Hough Jr from The Philadelphia Inquirer "The wisdom and humor of the novel's narrative voice and the stylistic risks that have transformed this straightforward story into art."
- Novelist David Bradley, winner of 1982's PEN/Faulkner Award "Ardizzone's nonstop stream of comic but revealing baseball metaphors elevates dugout chatter to something approaching poetry.