The stalks of the tomato plants have turned black and grown too tall, spindly Dalí horrors visited by one kind of vegetal blight or bacteria or another. On the heels of this wet summer, the green of their leaves glows virulent, and the heirloom tomato produces softball-sized fruits that have only flirted with ripeness before…
NEW YORK—The landmark criminal case against alleged heinous serial killer Stats took a turn yesterday as United States Attorney Geoffrey Berman, taking the rare step of handling the matter himself, watched a noted sabermetrician whom he had called as a witness hand the defense a gift-wrapped package of reasonable doubt for the jury. Russell A….
By the baseball diamond, behind the bleachers and dugouts and the rusting fence, there used to be a forest. You spent a lot of time there as a kid. You picked up plants and old bones, pretended you were a wolf-person. In your memory you are always very young, and yet somehow always alone; it…
He became the center of a controversy surrounding players hugging each other, survived a midseason stabbing at a bar, and devoured at least one live locust.
For some reason, I’ve found myself reading a lot about the 2004 World Series — specifically, the aftermath of the 2004 World Series. The way fans reacted to it, the way Boston media reacted to it, all the stuff people did to celebrate over the winter and into the beginning of the next season. Maybe…
Taking in the future Hall of Famer’s greatness, past, present, and future.
I am constantly in awe of the way the human body can adapt. The way that, given repeated exposure to certain fear-inducing stimuli, it will become so alert to the possibility of attack that it can signal danger even when distracted. I can walk down a mostly empty street at night, my music playing as…
“You know I’ll never see Wrigley Field anymore, before my eternal rest…” – Steve Goodman * * * Last weekend, I returned to Wrigley Field for the first time since 2015. In the three years since, I’ve moved to Boston, cycled through several jobs, started writing for Short Relief, and entered a relationship long enough…
On the west-bound edge of the turn lane, covers splayed and pages waving, a book. Some traffic-based injury—or the hands that jettisoned the book—dislodged a small chunk of pages, which lay a little more centered in the lane. What was knowable about the book in the few seconds it was visible as I drove by?…
Sometimes emergency measures throw six shutout innings of relief.
On Monday morning, I’ll be at my annual optometrist appointment, trying not to blink at the little puff of air during the first stage of the glaucoma test, trying not to squint against the lights bright and brighter, trying to decide which of the two lens options really is better in the series of minute…
1. The crows complaining from the maple tree outside the window sound enough like that one row of fans in Philadelphia in 2006, Mike Lieberthal at the plate in the second game of the September 3 double-header against Atlanta, the one that isn’t the one where Ryan Howard hit three home runs. Lieberthal stands in…