It is instead a moralizing post-war film about juvenile delinquency among the white, urban working-class as told through the story of freckle-faced Johnny, who rebels against his step-father through acts of petty larceny but is saved by a kindly radio broadcaster who provides Johnny the opportunity to experience wholesome male relationships as the batboy of the 1948 World Series champion Cleveland Indians. In the end, Johnny’s delinquency is entirely down to the mother for holding on too dearly to the memory of Johnny’s deceased father (a martyr to the American Way of Life on an unnamed battlefield of the 1940s), which engenders Johnny’s feelings of jealousy and disdain for the interloping step-father.
