And yet, when it came to hitting a baseball, I always liked my odds.

The solidity of contact is registered first in the hands. The knowledge radiates outward from there. 

I have torn up the boy whose baseball
You are signing again.
He was beautiful,
As you are, Brooks Robinson,
As you lean your name back, a... more

“You can’t pee here,” Brendan tells me as I climb inside the doorway leading into the belly of the Green Monster. What he... more

Old Seals Stadium is a shopping center now. It is a parking lot, a grocery store, a 24 Hour Fitness, a Ross Dress for Less, a... more

I’m sitting on our carpet, legs crossed, beer in my crotch. 

The girl wonders how he went from a boy with big league dreams to selling booze at a store on Long Island.

It's their first practice in good spring weather,
not only not raining, not cold, but full of light.

good game
good game
good game

He said that Thompson could be the fastest to hit five hundred, a first ballot Hall of Famer, but I just nodded and sipped my coffee.

Breathing heavily, we make it to the corner of the vacant dry cleaner’s. Still no one has rented it, I say. 

Blessed be the millwrights on the open hearth that awaited him; the nurses and elevator operators; secretaries; plumbers; electricians

Wrigley had put out a study claiming that gum chewing increased performance on assessments and my elementary school took it as gospel, sending letters home asking for us to bring it on test days. Marshall brought Big League Chew. 

The first doctor who called said I couldn’t play. The scan showed stress fractures and the only remedy was rest. It would... more

Gaylord Perry toiled for twenty-two seasons in the majors, and the look on his face suggests it was hard toil indeed.

The first time this happened, I sighed when he walked away, squinting my eyes to see if he had a wedding ring.

The solitude. In the summer, I dine. On hot dogs. And fast balls. Go Dodgers!

The spring we didn’t make love,
I started following baseball—

radio on the kitchen table,
me in that old night... more

Take your pick. Me, they said I hung my off-speed stuff, lost track of the count, lacked mental toughness. I waved off too many signs.

When I am young I wish I were invisible so that the white boys will stop screaming, “Go back where you came from.”

I joined the crowd and bought an XL.

1. What company made the gum drops called Fancy Nancies after the famous Beantown slugger duo?  

Kinsella, Annie: Cinnamon-haired romantic lead in Field of Dreams. Played with zeal by Amy Madigan. Equal parts romantic and pragmatic, she raised a farm and a daughter, vanquished small-town Nazism, and offered unconditional support to her crazy-ass ghost-loving husband.

The smell of grilled hot dogs is in the near distance. 

And everyone in section ten is standing