It was the day after Christmas when our parents began to argue and we went down to the basement, to our new Titan 360 Pro ping-pong table, my brother Ari and I. We were unsure about the game

On the last day of her life, my grandmother woke up, went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, and looked into the mirror to discover that she was bald. Oh! she said. That's a fright. This

The Baby's signature sportcoat was caught in the cab door again. "Every danged time," he muttered into his coffee. He disliked being seen riding in a cab, certain that others assumed he had a

The afternoon David was fired for stealing company office supplies and reselling them in an office superstore parking lot, the four verificationists took lunch ninety minutes late to see the

We the children were out there in the alley again, digging holes in the asphalt with our shovels, digging holes in the dark and wind and snow, but no matter how hard we dug our sister wasn’t

My father told me tollbooths were drive-thru dentists. The orthodontists were the lanes labeled EXACT CHANGE ONLY. "They change your teeth," he said, "until they're exact."

I cranked down

Most baseball fans remember the late Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis for his June 12, 1970 no-hitter against the San Diego Padres in San Diego. Dock struck out 6, walked 8, and hit one

Episode 1
Humble Beginnings

The first official Little League was played in 1882 on a balmy summer afternoon in Springfield, MA. It was a perfect day for a ball game, the grass freshly

The Catcher showed his pointer finger, the signal for a fastball. Two fingers issued a polite suggestion for a curveball. If the Pitcher included a change-up in his arsenal, and he really should,

Mike Hampton - P

When I wore my Astros hat and jersey to see them play the Cubs at Wrigley Field, someone threw a tampon at me, still in its wrapper. I didn’t see who threw it.

Tony

Craig Griffey ate snowflakes because he thought it would make him better at baseball.

When Craig Griffey was six he almost retired from baseball to pursue a career in motorcycles, but his

Girls, sweating in their polyester knickers, await their turns at the plate. Ankles clacking, mouths breathing, “We want a pitcher, not a belly-itcher!” Coach Agliolo frowns.

Bench 1 watches,

Renteria almost hits one out in the bottom of the ninth of a 3-3 game against Cleveland. It’s been a nightmare season of almosts for Detroit. Still, I watch them every single night. Inge pops up to

They said the scar tissue would break up in your shoulder, and that this could be a painful process. You imagine it cracking like dry earth every time you loosen up in the morning, and this helps

We are working toward converting all of the old into the new. We are not forsaking our past! But... it's going to take time. In the meantime...

the ARCHIVES!

My boss’s dealer was an Israeli guy named Amir who lived in Highland Park with his girlfriend and drove a Porsche. I met him one afternoon my first week working at Vintage Guitars. My boss Rick was

I’ll be the blonde-haired pony and you be the three-toed sloth on LSD. You be “altered.” You be “tripping balls.” You sit there, slowly drawing booger-like animals on a pad of paper with your three

The chemistry started in biology class. It was first period, and Roo had just gotten her first period. She could smell herself. Or she smelled something. It might have been the science room. Weird

My father, when he tried to quit smoking, used to suck on aquarium stones he sterilized at work. He claimed they worked better than candy or gum, which his doctor recommended. He’d slip a stone

Presume a bathroom and a row of yellow and hotly round fluorescents above the mirror. Presume a young woman with her hip to the linoleum, her temple to her wrist. She cleans with her free

You are a good-looking man. You know this because people tell you all the time, sometimes out of nowhere. You assume that people don’t get told that all the time unless it is deserved. You have

After the divorce, my uncle Nicolai became an amateur taxidermist. His first attempts were on roadkill, then the mice he took from the traps he set in the kitchen. He sent us pictures. My

This is the story about how I lost my husband.

Jamie had been in the hospital getting blood work and pre-op type treatment since finally,finally, he’d made it to the top of the

The Mayor, after several days of grieving, emerged from his hacienda at the hour that was once called lunch. He passed his guards, then slowly—laboriously—carried his voluminous frame through the streets, stopping at the square's one remaining café and ordering a well-cooked steak. The sun glared down from the cloudless sky and illuminated the Mayor, capturing him in full as he spread himself across a stool and held his knife and fork in a rehearsed display of indefatigable hope. There was still meat, he wanted the people to see. There was still a mayor. There was still a town, present and alive in that square.

I arrive at the party and there are about four people there—wait, there are ten more in the back room. Now there are six more at the door! The radiators are hissing out champagne. Everyone is