"Becca, you're in charge," Mom said, craning her neck around the driver's side burgundy vinyl headrest. "I'm picking you kids up in three hours at this exact spot, in front of Gate D. Do not, I

The phone rings. You can a) get out of the hot tub, b) tell Graciela to get it, or 3) send Roberto. Answering the phone, however, would ultimately interrupt Graciela, who is in the hot tub with

There he was in the dugout crying.

All the guys were on the field. They were slugging it out because what were they supposed to do? Clint got beamed in the small and Gary charged from the

As soon as Joey Steinbach's foot sprung from second base and he made the turn, there was no unplugging it. He'd decided back on first base that if the ball even skimmed the outfield grass he was

September 9, 2007

Add incandescent dedication to six gold gloves
and get a damaged biceps tendon, a bad back and
a "loose body" removed from the bicep joint
in a

It is not for nothing that baseball has existed since 1846 and now encompasses 30 teams playing 162 games each a year. In that span of time, speculative taxonomists and fly-by-night actuaries have

coach wont stop yelling
"watch the signs from the bench coach!"
but i hate bunting
- Brad Epperson



Swing Through
In sheer disbelief
Having swung through the fastball
He

I stop at a 7-Eleven for a pack of gum. I give the cashier a twenty.

"You don't have any ones?" the cashier asks.

I don't, but I say I do anyway.

The cashier just stares at me.

"Um,

So, my step-sister Alice. She divorces her husband of ten years. Bart. High school sweethearts. Sad, sad, sad. Claims he beat her. Wins 75% in court. Unheard of, her lawyer says. But abuse factored

His caps lock button broke and he could only type in capital letters. He spent a notable portion of his money on hos and could not buy a new keyboard. When he emailed his friends they wrote back

1.

so there's this girl, as there always is, except she's a movie star, which figures, since this is me, telling you a story you aren't likely to believe anyhow, and she's not very

Erin McGraw teaches writing at Ohio State, where she works with her husband, the poet Andrew Hudgins. She's the author of The Good Life, Lies of the Saint, and The Baby Tree. In her latest

Paul Maliszewski's Fakers: Hoaxers, Con Artists, Counterfeiters and Other Great Pretenders, was published in January by The New Press. The book is a collection of essays, interviews, and reports

1. Sweet Sixteen:

She is thinking of her father at the breakfast table, reading the paper. Can almost hear him humming softly to himself. Can hear the slow crunch of cereal and the

1. Janie

When I was sixteen, my dad's new wife and her daughter, Mary Ann, moved in, so I had to get out. I found a burned-out one story place on Corey Road near the gas plant. When it wasn't

At some point, the people in their thirties and forties decided to go one of two ways: dog fighting, or dog grooming. It was a simple choice, really, and one for which their childhoods and young

On the way home, Jill pulls through Dairy Queen and orders a burger and a butterscotch sundae. Her boyfriend orders the same thing, three large fries and a dilly bar. They eat while Jill drives,

I first became a fan of Hannah Tinti's writing when I read her story, "Home Sweet Home," (appearing in her collection Animal Crackers). The story begins: "Pat and Clyde were murdered on pot roast

Shopping

I was sitting at the kitchen table, it was morning, the light was pale and fine, he was messing about, making something nice for me to eat. 'I want you to come with me to buy a

In less than an hour, the ferry was at half-speed, the wind had died and the magnificent flora of Cane Island was in full view. They were in the brochure again, the one the travel agent had given

Elias was a banker, so we left with more than most. $1,600 to spend at the outfitters—three yoke of oxen, 2000 pounds of food, boxes of bullets and spare parts: tongue, axle, wheel. Two sets of

Meine Liebe

It got to where I couldn't stop talking about him, though our relationship had to be secret — there was no other way — for he was fifty-eight, Daniel M. Kennedy Professor of

John Brandon's debut crime noir novel Arkansas is full of men who become bored or dissatisfied with the straight life and who, in the process of trying to find something else, end up working as

In God's Country

Camping in the northern part of the state, two guys and a girl woke to the sound of what they thought was a nearby bear. The sound did come from a bear, but the bear wasn't

The boy mastered the alphabet, but the other boys were playing soccer. The boy mastered subtraction, but the other boys were saying who could and couldn't sit in the back row of the cafeteria. The

It's Christmas Eve, our birthday's less than an hour away, and, per Tannen family tradition, it's Davie's and my first night home for the holidays. Unlike me, Davie's not much of a drinker—not