Still, I was present enough to remember what the approach of spring meant — the shining beginning of baseball’s domain. I used to know this by smell, by bloom, by the urge to pick up that bat as if it were called upon by the doctor tapping my knee to test my reflexes. But I no longer play. I do not have a camp to which to report, I do not have the will of an elder brother pushing me to have a catch in the snow anymore. Life has gone on: the nine innings we hope to have are speeding up, double plays are being turned and the outs are accumulating.

Then I realize that my children, who are now 4, 3 and 1, are slowing it all down. They are the visit to the mound, the 7th-inning stretch, the double switch to buy time in a game that knows no clock. They have questions about baseball. In answering them, I taste the game again from the most purified source you can find.