From one of sportswriting's best-known commentators comes a funny, moving, and unconventional exploration of a glorious baseball season. In the summer of '61, Mike Lupica's father left notes for him in the Maris hit another, Mantle went two-for-four, the Yanks won. That was Lupica's best summer ever. He thought he'd never have another like it—until the summer of '98, when he found himself leaving notes for his own Sosa hit another, McGwire hit one back. And the Yanks won. With humor and feeling, Lupica recaptures the season that made everyone stand up and cheer, but not in any ordinary way. His is also a story of fathers and sons—about the golden thread that stretches through baseball and, for Lupica, from his father to himself to his sons. "I cannot tell you why baseball is passed on the way it is, more than the other sports. I just know it came first with me. It was something I shared with my father, and still share today. It was a special language we had, at the ballpark, in the front seat of a '56 Dodge, watching on television. Talking on the telephone the night McGwire hit No. 62, all that time after we had watched Maris hit No. 61. A love that fits inside a bigger love, like a ball in a mitt."
