"Sometimes things aren't supposed to change," Billy would say, lying in bed while rubbing my back, when we got to talking about<a class="more" href="/web_features/to-save-the-dying">... more</a>

We were just out of Williams driving to Flagstaff in the dead of winter in the dead of night when one of us, the driver, shouted the rest<a class="more" href="/web_features/overnight">... more</a>

There was no place to get it on.

There are bulky strange men in the kitchen, they are laying new black and white<a class="more" href="/web_features/the-old-in-and-out-odyssey">... more</a>

The unruly ferns creeping over the porch of the grand old house in Selma, Alabama, didn't fool Allie. Nor the lacy vines hugging the walls<a class="more" href="/web_features/slaves">... more</a>

The Living Room

This is where we watch TV, where we entertain guests and let them add to the walls. You can see some of the<a class="more" href="/web_features/house-of-words">... more</a>

My son thinks he's French.

His accent was cute at first, but it's starting to get on my nerves. If he asks for<a class="more" href="/web_features/my-son-thinks-he-39-s-french">... more</a>

It takes a lot to get me to read an entire book. I buy, borrow and steal books by the hundreds, but the actual<a class="more" href="/web_features/an-interview-with-donald-ray-pollock">... more</a>

C.J. Hribal (a.k.a. – Juice Hardball) is a stone cold baseball freak. The kind of guy who can tell you who played third<a class="more" href="/web_features/an-interview-with-c-j-hribal">... more</a>

Cory glares at me across the room. His left eye is swollen and purple. If you look closely you can see his veins throb as<a class="more" href="/web_features/i-39-d-do-it-again-too">... more</a>

If the game of baseball is a narrative in numbers, try this one on for size: on Saturday March 30, 2008,<a class="more" href="/web_features/not-just-another-day-at-the-ballpark">... more</a>

I Telltale
My dad still has the lanky, deceptively thin frame typical of most pitchers, with long, gibbon-like arms – he is 6'2' but<a class="more" href="/web_features/the-dark-one">... more</a>

I've seen em all.

The pretty boys with all the talent and not an ounce of sack.

The Latinos so flashy they trick you<a class="more" href="/web_features/the-tools-of-ignorance">... more</a>

When I was a kid, my dad took me to a Mets game at Shea on my birthday. I remember walking<a class="more" href="/web_features/it-39-s-like-i-hit-a-homerun-or-strikeout-every-time">... more</a>

A friend once told me a story about a kid he'd known who played right field and caught flies. Not fly balls – this kid hated Little League,<a class="more" href="/web_features/flies">... more</a>

I have been set on fire and pushed down these steep cinderblock steps. The people here have snapped the bones of<a class="more" href="/web_features/excerpt-from-the-phillie-phanatic">... more</a>

To the editor: 

I enjoyed your baseball preview issue but wholeheartedly disagree with your predictions for the<a class="more" href="/web_features/i-39-ve-got-dreams-to-remember">... more</a>

A swing and a miss.
And now the lone samurai
Returns to the bench.
        - Ted<a class="more" href="/web_features/baseball-haikus">... more</a>

I had worked in a bottle factory, a bottle-top factory, a paper factory, a nut factory, a bolt factory, a clock factory, a wall<a class="more" href="/web_features/of-modern-bags">... more</a>

Tom had been promising for some time to take Stevie to the zoo, and today was the day. He paid their admission and the two entered the<a class="more" href="/web_features/at-the-zoo">... more</a>

I wanna have cool recurring dreams, ones that'll make me sound smart when I describe them to people. Right now, I only have the same<a class="more" href="/web_features/lopped-off">... more</a>

Her heart swells like someone turned a faucet on. It is enormous. A fast-moving cloud of blackbirds dissipates into the trees. Or are they<a class="more" href="/web_features/diagnosis">... more</a>

7:13 

Tate found a sawbuck turtle near the metal shed. He called inside for me. I sat at the kitchen table, a napkin spread across my<a class="more" href="/web_features/yesterday">... more</a>

After work on Fridays we'd usually go over to The Holly on 27th for a beer.

One night I'm working late so I don't get there till<a class="more" href="/web_features/happy-hour">... more</a>

His name is David and he's in the hospital with a lot of things stuck in his arms, nodes pasted to his chest, tubes going into his nostrils<a class="more" href="/web_features/daddy--2">... more</a>

I'm a big fan of blue. The dark, deep blues. Like that James Taylor song, deep greens and blues are the colors I choose. Green's nice,<a class="more" href="/web_features/roy-g-biv">... more</a>

Up to our lunch room table came the newest, biggest loser in the ninth grade -- Intercom! We called him Intercom because he wore a big<a class="more" href="/web_features/ninth-grade">... more</a>

Earl Jenkins was a security guard at PNC Park where the Pittsburgh Pirates play baseball. Every time he worked one of the<a class="more" href="/web_features/the-good-cents-of-security">... more</a>

Sometimes the name they give you is all wrong. Sugar or Baby, something sweet, something helpless, something you are not and never<a class="more" href="/web_features/like-unto-god">... more</a>

Before the curious series of events that stunned a quiet community, Calvin Flack DDS wondered if he would ever find the perfect dental<a class="more" href="/web_features/tooth-decay">... more</a>