“I was in the visiting clubhouse waiting to interview one of the Oakland A’s this year when one of the players called, ‘Here, pussy’—as though he were calling a cat. But of course, he hadn’t lost Fluffy; he’d found a woman in his locker room.”

Human emotions and contact in the far future.

"Ethan begins moonlighting at the touch center on weekday mornings. Off-peak hours. He robo-cabs it there and back alone. Still, working there is a leap from the isolation of his apartment, and it’s the first time he’s felt inspired in years. He knows he’s not handsome by conventional standards, but he can give a mean hug and they never have enough guys to work at places like this anyway."

Relief pitcher Donnie Moore is best known for giving up a crucial home run during Game 5 the 1986 ALCS. It’s not what led to his suicide a few years later.

An essay on the pitcher, friendship and death.

An essay on Derek Jeter.

This is what happens when you concoct game-fixing allegations against a Major League pitcher because of a perceived slight on Facebook.

Johnny Damon, after baseball.

Tom Emanski changed the sport of baseball, his iconic instructional videos a mainstay on ESPN. Then he disappeared.

A flamboyant player, a charismatic coach, and a sex predator.

A father who brought his daughter to a ballgame and the fallout from a foul ball.

Inside a struggling franchise’s radical rebuilding project.

A final visit with late boxer Teófilo Stevenson, who could have fought or even been Muhammad Ali had he not stayed in Cuba.

A Little League season in Camden, New Jersey, where the murder rate is 17 times the national average.

On May 16, 1913, after he’d spent years earning a chance at American stardom, Canary Islander shortstop Alfredo Cabrera played his one and only Major League Baseball game.

Yasiel Puig’s journey to the Dodgers.

A story of a playoff at-bat, a franchise, and a spectator couple.

"Coco has watched every home game with her husband from these seats since the ballpark opened in 2008 while listening to the game play by play on 106.7 FM. She has endured horrible seasons, but 2009 when her beloved team lost 108 games, and 2010 when they lost 93 more, are distant memories. Now she feels like a winner. This is the playoffs. After marriage, and kids, and grandkids, after retirement and their dream trip to Dubrovnik, this is what she has been hoping for. It is the last of her major life events. Something to retell at family dinners. Remember the World Series of 2012?"

Race and major league pitcher Chris Archer.

The Giants' miraculous 1951 comeback wasn't all that it seemed.

Previously: The Longform Guide to Cheaters.

The angry last days of Ty Cobb.

On the legendary journalist and the book he never finished.

What baseball writers did during the steroid era.

The story of Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez’s flight from Cuba.

The war between Major League Baseball and Alex Rodriguez, “fought with six-figure payoffs in the tanning salons and strip malls of South Florida.”

The beginning of Don DeLillo's Underworld, in memory of Andy Pafko.

"Pafko is out of paper range by now, jogging toward the clubhouse. But the paper keeps falling. If the early paper waves were slightly hostile and mocking, and the middle waves a form of fan commonality, then this last demonstration has a softness, a selfness. It is coming down from all points, laundry tickets, envelopes swiped from the office, there are crushed cigarette packs and sticky wrap from ice-cream sandwiches, pages from memo pads and pocket calendars, they are throwing faded dollar bills, snapshots torn to pieces, ruffled paper swaddles for cupcakes, they are tearing up letters they've been carrying around for years pressed into their wallets, the residue of love affairs and college friendships, it is happy garbage now, the fans' intimate wish to be connected to the event, unendably, in the form of pocket litter, personal waste, a thing that carries a shadow of identity -- rolls of toilet tissue unbolting lyrically in streamers."

Billy Dillon was about to sign a contract with the Detroit Tigers. Instead he was convicted–wrongly–of first-degree murder and spent the next 27 years in prison.