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became unbearable, they would dip themselves in the ocean for a minute or two and then slowly saunter back to the blanket, hoping to lure the orange-and-black-suited lifeguards from their perches in their high double chairs.
    As soon as I knew where on the beach my sister’s blanket was located, I raced to the tunnel that led to the pool. Inside, the smell of the chlorine produced a feeling of happy intoxication which lingered even as I emerged into the open and was momentarily blinded by the brilliant light reflected from the blue water, gleaming diving boards, and white balcony. Jeanne was the one who had taught me how to swim, and she knew that I could handle the pool on my own. Surrounded by hundreds of fellow swimmers, I would stay in the pool for hours, paddling up and down the lanes, or clinging to the side and watchingas people dove off the high diving board. Though Jeanne could dive frontward and backward off the highest board, I never learned to dive, and I watched the graceful plunges of other swimmers with awe.
    Jones Beach also became the setting for a new friendship in that summer of 1949. Johnny was eight years old. He had blue eyes and curly hair. Not only was he a Dodger fan, but he knew far more about the Dodgers than I did, perhaps because of his two-year seniority. My small stock of stories and fables was far outdistanced by what seemed to me a truly breathtaking knowledge of the team and its history, derived, like mine, from his father and his family. It was my first introduction to the invisible community of baseball, which now, for the first time, was extended beyond my street in Rockville Centre, to the town of Mineola, where Johnny lived. In years to come, I would find that the lovers of the Dodgers, and, indeed, of baseball, shared common ground, reaching across generations and different social stations dispersed across the country. Even now, wherever I travel on a book tour or to give a lecture, I invariably encounter an old Dodger fan, or the child of a fan, eager to exchange stories laden with that mingled pain and exultation which was the shared lot of every Brooklyn follower.
    It was Johnny who first told me the story of the 1941 World Series between the Dodgers and the Yankees, when Dodger catcher Mickey Owen dropped the third strike, a story I was to hear many times from many people, all ritually re-enacting the tragedy which the years had translated into strange delight. The Yanks had won two of the first three games, but in the fourth game, the Dodgers were leading 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and no one on base. Tommy Henrich stepped to the plate to face Dodger reliever Hugh Casey. Casey quickly got twostrikes on Henrich and then threw a wicked curve, which may have been a spitball, which Henrich swung at and completely missed. The game was over and the Dodgers had won, the Series was tied at two games apiece—or so it seemed, until it became clear that Mickey Owen had been unable to catch the third strike. In fact, the dropped third strike had rolled all the way to the backstop behind home plate, and Henrich had reached first base safely. The Yankees made the most of their opportunity: the next batter walked, and the batter after him doubled. The Yankees won the game and eventually the Series.
    Ever the fantasist, in my imagination I would stop the action at the point where Casey was about to throw the third strike. This time Owen caught the pitch, the third out was recorded, and the Dodgers went on to become champions of the world. I wondered how many times Mickey Owen himself had replayed that same moment in his mind and tried to force a different ending. I felt terrible for him. Years later, I learned that he was never really the same afterward and that Hugh Casey eventually became a heavy drinker and killed himself with a shotgun blast in his hotel room.
    But for every tale of woe there was a tale of joy, and nothing gave me greater happiness than talking with Johnny