The Thrill Of The Grass

During the 1981 baseball strike, there is a locksmith in Houston that discovers he can pick the lock on a door to a baseball stadium. He is a fan of baseball almost to the point of obsession, being a failed player himself. He enters it and wants to feel something of the feelings he gets when he's at a game. He feels the astroturf under his feet and knows this is wrong. He thinks back to his childhood and he knows that baseball is meant to be played on grass. He starts to formulate a plan, and decides to call upon a man who he has never met before, but whom he knows is just as into baseball as he is. The man agrees to help the locksmith, and eventually there are around 50 men coming each night. Each one brings squares of sod, or gardening tools, or dirt for the infield. Eventually the job is done and the baseball field is returned to its former glory, and baseball there will be played on grass like it is meant to be.
This story is important because it shows us that we can change things even when they seem much bigger than us. It also relates to the fact that they are currently demolishing the old Yankee Stadium. It's the same principle as the grass. There are a lot of old memories in that stadium, and there are a lot of old memories concerning playing on grass.
The protagonist is the locksmith who breaks into the baseball stadium. The antagonist is society. The conflict is person v. society because society and it's technological advances are the ones that replaced the grass with the astroturf. This is how the story and the conflict relate to technology. Also, the story relates to freedom because the grass represents the freedom that has been taken away by the astroturf. The grass makes the players who grew up playing on it feel at home.
The theme is that sometimes the old things are better than the newest technology.
The inciting event is when the locksmith finds out that he can enter the baseball field because this is the beginning of the conflict because it leads him to the realization that there is astroturf on the field instead of grass. The climax is when he looks out over the working men.
The point of view is first person.
There are many symbols in this story. The field symbolises the man's love for the game of baseball. The grass symbolizes home and freedom, because it reminded the old men of when they were children and would play baseball on the grass, of carefree afternoons spent playing in the sun. That's what the grass represents. Baseball represents America because it is the most traditional sport in America and the sport that people everywhere identify with America.