The Vanishing Ball Player
Moses Cage (1960 - ?)

My hands, nets. My arms, windmills. My heart, a diamond.
-Moses Cage, 1989

Cage spent three seasons as a backup left

All Paige heard was her watch ticking. She peeled away the cement smell and damp that grew in the old basement where Buddy Cantrell had pitched her. You didn't grow up without running through a few

Her husband allows her all things but one — she cannot open the door in the tower.

He is a private man — coyly old fashioned.  His face is ageless and strong, his smile is more habit than joy. 

The holes in Dean's shoes let in the rain that streamed in rivers down the sleek asphalt of Ruby Lane. His feet squished miserably along the rows of dark Tudors built on spec. His pockets were

“Did you see what Suzy did when her father tossed her into the air?”

“No, I was looking at Jimmy.”

“She screamed. She screamed like a little piglet right until she hit the water.”

“My

I miss Lost. I want to go on Lost with you. Let’s be on Lost together. Let’s get on a plane that says: DESTINATION - CRASH. Let’s be a part of the brand new cast. I want to be a main character

How do you see yourself? the questioner at the other end of the table asks. Stumped, earlier questions more specific, handle on the context, now an expanse stretches out inside me, glance at the

It is raining and Jacob is a boy.

Jacob is a boy and once climbed a tree and once fell from a tree and once, when he was up in a tree and not falling from a tree, he pretended to have a gun in

Julia Wertz's first two books are called Fart Party, a great, attention-grabbing title. I remember grabbing the book off the shelf at the comic bookstore, poking my boyfriend and laughing

He was putting potatoes into my hands.

“What else you need. Salt?”

He stepped over a stack of plates. I moved around them.

“Here. This is good. You cook with this. No?”

The

Courtney Love’s mom lived in house three blocks away from mine when I was growing up. She was a therapist for married people and children of divorce, things like that.  Her husband (not Courtney

I.

A minimally invasive vaporization of the prostate, she says. Performed with high-energy light beams. Precise, she says. We're talking about the difference between a baseball and a

Flight Patterns

The night the ghosts got in we went out the third floor window.
I heard boot steps on the stairs and 
we were gone.
Out past paint flecked white wicker into the forest, 
we’d

Exley, Brock Clarke’s third novel, is the story of Miller le Ray, a boy whose father may or may not have left Miller and his mother to go and serve in Iraq.  Told from Miller’s point of view — and

The men I meet always want someone I’m not. Naturally, I think the one I’m meeting tonight will be different. I’ve never seen him before; we’ve only talked over the phone. He runs a voice mapping

with-draw \with-‘dro\ vb- withdrew; withdrawn; withdrawing-  a: to remove from a place of deposit < I check the pockets of my husband’s blue jeans before placing them in the washer andwithdraw a

Do not open your story by talking about the weather. Do not exceed the posted speed limits. Do not accept packages from strangers. Do not make any sudden movements. Do not interfere in an ongoing

FORECAST

Little Thomas and I are out in the yard, ripping up dead saplings by the roots so the wind won’t. Last week a gust sent a dry limb through the kitchen window. It took thirty minutes to

Headline: DON’T SAY MOVIE UNLESS YOU MEAN IT

Profile: Sometimes people invite me to watch a movie when what they really want is sex. This bothers me when the movie is one I actually want to

Stewart O'Nan,
Author of Emily, Alone, Last Night at the Lobster, and Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season (with Stephen

America’s Game: It is the place where memory gathers.
 – Walt Whitman

1.
My mother, Brooklyn-born and raised, used to tell me that if the Dodgers had been in the World Series in 1943,

He doesn’t float to the plate, just walks. A smattering of applause, what you’d expect on a Wednesday afternoon. “Now pinch hitting,” the announcer calls.

We look to the scoreboard, see what

Expecting Dodger Stadium to be half as awesome as Camelback Ranch

Asking husband why he can't lay down a bunt like he used to

Purchasing Swarovski crystal accented team logo tee

LATE SEASON

In Remington, concerned neighbors who had not seen Mrs. Gross, an elderly woman who lived alone in a corner house, in almost a week, called the police to report their fears about