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. 

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

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

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!

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

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.

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

radio on the kitchen table,
me in that old night dress,

the ball dropping into a glove,
always two down, bottom

of the ninth,

I joined the crowd and bought an XL.

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

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.

In 1974 or 1975 my father took my sisters and me to our first baseball game. It was always going to be a Yankee game, wherever that might be.

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

I practically worship, use
to fill an empty life.

Later that evening, Ken Caminiti died alone in a bug infested Bronx drug house.

Then maybe head over to the State Park near Orange City to rent a canoe and paddle gator-infested waters, strafed by black vultures and large, fictional-looking birds, for the chance to see some manatees, large and stationary in the gentle current of a warm, clear river. 

Then maybe head over to the State Park near Orange City to rent a canoe and paddle gator-infested waters, strafed by black vultures and large, fictional-looking birds, for the chance to see some manatees, large and stationary in the gentle current of a warm, clear river.