“Baseball breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in spring when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings. And then as soon as the chill rains come it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone, when you need it most.” —A. Bartlett Giamatti, Commissioner of Major League Baseball, 1989 My father teaches me two essential skills at the tender age of eighteen months: to read and to blow raspberries with my … [Read more...] about Things American: The Boys Of My Youth (Baseball Seasons 1989-2014)