I watched Jim Johnson try to close out the 9thin front of a half-capacity Camden Yards. My father was supposed to come, but he was six blocks up at Mercy Hospital relearning to use the left side of

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 lefty’s autograph,
Your glove hand, the one that

“You can’t pee here,” Brendan tells me as I climb inside the doorway leading into the belly of the Green Monster. What he means is that you shouldn’t pee here. Manny Ramirez did once, during the

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 Japanese dollar store. I get all my errands done at old Seals Stadium—all

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

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.

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. 

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

The first doctor who called said I couldn’t play. The scan showed stress fractures and the only remedy was rest. It would have been a blessing the diagnosis came between seasons but, for me,

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

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

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

After tonight, I’ll be demoted to my parents’ couch and a job at my uncle’s lumberyard.

Everyone was welcome. No one was cut 
in this league.

You cannot think of baseball without thinking of your grandpa. The two forever tangled in each’s DNA.