A singular regret has dogged me into middle age: the way I betrayed baseball. I loved the game—played it whenever I could, collected boxfuls of cards, delighted in watching the Twins, memorized their batting averages. At 16, I was a starting outfielder for my high-school jayvee team. Until the day a buddy told me he had a bag of pot, and I skipped practice to get stoned with him. I didn’t know how to excuse my absence to the coach the next day, so I skipped practice and got stoned again. The day after that, I simply turned in my uniform. My blooming drug addiction had been engulfing my life; baseball became its latest casualty. I sobered up senior year, played some softball in college, married, and started raising kids. One constant—in addition to my sobriety—remained my love of baseball. I devoured books and articles on the subject, continued to follow the Twins, made pilgrimages to famous ballparks, and wrote countless articles and three books of my own about this great game.Back on the field coaching my son’s Little League team, the thwack of the ball in my glo …