Eric THERE HE WAS, standing in the outfield, lost and bored, staring off into the ether as the game trundled on without him, about the same age as I was when I buried my dog Rex in the woods at the end of Henrietta Road. My son, Eric. It is no crime to hate baseball, except maybe in Patriots Landing, where the only legitimate excuse not to play baseball is lacrosse. But Eric hated lacrosse even more than baseball. He hadn’t wanted to play Little League anymore, had wanted to give it up for video games and comic books, but I, the all-American dad, wouldn’t let him. “A boy needs to play baseball,” I said. My wife, Caitlin, flapped her arms in frustration but let me have my way. Now, as I approached the Little League complex—three diamonds, each with stands and lights and hard green fences plastered with advertisements, along with rows of batting cages hung with netting—I grimaced at the sight of my boy looking so out of place. A short and slight eleven-year-old, his wire glasses on and his oversized uniform hanging off him in loose folds, he was like a tiny lamb among the raging beasts in the field.
