| Hodgkins Park (March 2002) the first warm afternoon in early march kids on a field with bats and gloves a waist-high soft line drive sails two feet to a boy�s right he moves for it, turns and stretches like the heroes he has seen at Fenway or on TV and as the ball lands behind him and dribbles on the boy regains his balance, turns his mitt toward his face and opens it, finding only a smattering of dirt it is good that he doesn�t know now how often that painful ache he is feeling will revisit his life |