Some weeks, he’d pester us every day until we took him out to the ballfield. We had some great years playing ball, though like a lot of kids, his interest in the game waxed and waned. “He’s got the hands to be something special. “You see that grip?” I asked his mother when he wrapped his long, bluish-purple fingers around my index finger. I had him pegged as a baseball all-star 20 minutes after he was born, his head cradled in my right hand, his entire body about the length of my forearm, his fingernails no bigger than paint specks. Although I knew the end was probably near a couple of years ago, when the day finally came, it hit me harder than a Randy Johnson fastball.
