Kevin is really striving for identity in the Shakespeare Bats Cleanup. In the beginning his identity is strictly about baseball, in the middle it is a mixture of baseball athlete/boyfriend/maybe a poet, then lastly I think he just does a salute to poetry and goes back to baseball. I don't know if he ever really feels like he finds his identity, it seems like at the of the book he still hasn't quite gotten his identity.
By the beginning of the book Kevin is a baseball athlete that has come down with mono. After his father hands him a journal he begins to write poetry. He is constantly upset that he cannot play, even by 3/4 of the book, he is complaining about the fact that he is no longer part of the starting lineup, and denying his poetry to Mira.
In the middle with the book he is beginning to escalate in his poetry. He is becoming more rounded, moving from haikus to elegy and a fantastic free-verse. He really discovers himself as a poet but when it comes to everyone else he denies his ability as a poet to his dad and Mira. He still has strong desires to be a baseball player.
By the end of the book he is back at baseball and often times his poems are about him getting back in shape or the way he is swinging and has the pitcher figured out. I have this strong feeling that once he gets back into baseball his desire to write poetry will fall away. So even though he has created an identity to the reader as a poet, he still feels more for the identity as an athlete.
Although he says that he hopes that poetry and him will be friends for a long time, the ending line that it is almost as cool as poetry leaves me with the feeling that if he had to choose he would still pick poetry. But maybe he is just throwing up a "tough-guy" guard.
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