The Crazy Horse Electric Game

The Crazy Horse Electric Game by Chris Crutcher opens on Willie Weaver. Weaver plays baseball on a team called Samson Floral, for Coho, a town in Montana, and he’s their star pitcher. When the book begins, Weaver is getting ready to play the championship game—the most important of his life thus far. His friends and family worship his pitching ability, but he feels the pressure as Samson Floral’s fate is in his hands. There’s extra stress too because this would be Coho’s first championship. Also, Weaver’s father, Big Will, lives through his son’s glory on the diamond, which brings back the thrill for him that he got playing football for the University of Washington in the 1960s. That pressure is balanced by Weaver’s confidence. His fastball is untouchable when he’s on his game.

Game day arrives, and Weaver owns the pitcher’s mound. At the start of the seventh inning, Samson Floral is winning 1-0 because no one on the other team can make it to second base while Weaver’s pitching. Weaver makes a mistake though in the ninth inning that places an opportunity in the opposition’s hands, just as their star hitter steps up to the plate. Weaver loses his balance mid-pitch and the ball is smacked out to third base, but Weaver manages to catch it, adding to his fame.

After winning the championship game, Weaver is on a high for the rest of the summer. One weekend, while away with his parents, his girlfriend Jenny and his best buddy Johnny, Weaver gets into a water skiing accident that physically disables him. He suffers shame, embarrassment, and frustration, and begins to withdraw from others, but Jenny and his friends refuse to let him do so. However, their pity drives him to retreat emotionally, and he becomes depressed, contemplating suicide. His parents respond by sending him to a therapist. When his injuries affect his parents’ marriage, his relationship with his father, and his relationship with Jenny, Weaver decides to run away.



He packs, takes whatever cash he can find, and gets on a bus going to San Francisco. The bus breaks down in Oakland, and Weaver is targeted by a local gang. They assault and rob him. He’s found by Lacey, a local bus driver; Lacey takes him home where he can stay the night and recover. Weaver ends up staying longer than that, trading his help around the house in exchange for Lacey boarding him. That’s when he discovers that Lacey isn’t just a bus driver but also a pimp. Lacey enrolls Weaver in a local school called OMLC, or One More Last Chance High School.

There, Weaver meets Lisa, the physical education teacher, who helps him feel better about his body after the accident. The principal, Andre, treats Weaver like a younger brother. Unfortunately, as things at school are getting better, life at home is getting worse. Weaver wakes late one night to the sounds of Lacey arguing with one of the girls he pimps—a girl who is one of Weaver’s classmates. Weaver comes to her defense and knocks out Lacey, and then fears Lacey will kill him when he comes to—but he doesn’t. Weaver wants to move into the school’s basement, but Lacey tells him to stay.

As it turns out, Lacey is trying to redeem himself after beating his own son. His son is now permanently brain damaged and lives in a hospital, and Lacey’s not allowed to see him. He wants to make things right by taking care of Weaver. Meanwhile, Weaver is healing. He starts learning tai chi and is starting to play basketball, which leads to his befriending Hawk and Kato. Andre is trying to improve the school’s décor, but before long, the same gang that beat up Weaver defaces his efforts. Kato gets his hands on the keys to the school and plans to teach the gang a lesson with Hawk’s and Weaver’s help. However, Weaver ends up against the gang on his own, and they set the school on fire. Weaver escapes, saving the life of the gang leader.



Even though the school gets burned down, Andre still tries to make the best of it. Weaver works harder with Lisa, inspired by Andre’s persistence, and is almost completely healed. On graduation day, Weaver gives a speech expressing his thanks, and then he leaves to return to Coho. He’s been gone a total of two years, and the Coho he comes back to is much different from the town he left behind. Not only are his parents divorced, but his mother has married someone else. Big Will is unemployed and an alcoholic. Jenny isn’t exactly happy to see him either—she can’t make sense of his disappearance and sudden return. Weaver no longer feels like Coho is home. There, he still feels like he’s disabled. At the end of the story, Weaver rides back to Oakland on his father’s motorcycle with the promise to work on reconnecting with his parents.