In 2009, following my heralded return to the baseball field after a ten-year hiatus came down in flames like a fucking meteorite, I saw my athleticism with a much starker reality. My increasing age was no longer merely making the movie of my life story that much more dramatic. That Long Island summer league would not be the crucible, or petri dish, if you will, from which my eventual legend would spring. It would be the fogless mirror showing me the truth as I had to see it, coldly reflective, staying whole as it was only my youthful dreams that shattered.

Luckily, I still had softball!

This is my third year playing on my current team. Most of the time we play on the outer edges of Manhattan, sometimes in Queens or the Bronx, sometimes on Roosevelt Island. I wondered why that is, but realized if there were space enough for more fields in Manhattan, a professional baseball team might play here. Each field across the city has its own feel and idiosyncrasies, and I’ve enjoyed visiting them all because I discover new parts of the city where I’d never think to go, ever. I’ve played on a field at the north end of Roosevelt Island near where I forged one of my earliest memories, and the only one of my father’s father. I’ve played on a clay field under the Queensboro Bridge (hitting it is not a home run). Last year, I finally got to play a couple of games at one of the East River Park fields after six years of waiting and, as I tweeted after the first, put not one but two home runs into the river.

Now, there are other fields between the rivers, in Chelsea and in Clinton and in other neighborhoods here and there. But my favorites (besides ER #2) are those in Central Park. It’s wide open space. Our team won last summer’s division championship on one of the North Meadow fields. And there are more personal connections there, too: I’ve taken infield on the same field up near the 80s where my dad tried out for a baseball team fifty years ago. Crazy stuff, despite all the pathetic bragging that goes with it.

The other week, we played further down. Just a few blocks into the park, northeast of Columbus Circle, at Heckscher Ballfield #5. I can’t pretend I’m young anymore, or that I’ll stand on a beautiful professional ballfield in any meaningful competitive situation. But that night I let my imagination fly, because I came damn close:

With the skyline in the outfield, it had the intra-city charm of many of the major league parks built in the last twenty years. But this was in Manhattan, in New York City, and I’d never felt more strongly that I’d inadvertently made it to the warm, gooey center of the world.