It Takes Just As Many Men To

Some Of Football's Gaudiest Displays Of Manliness Are Purely Aesthetic. It's Not What Players Do, It's How They Look Doing It.

Baseball, Boxing, Handball - Sooner Or Later Every Game Gets Compared To Narrative, But Only In Football Are The Plays Perfectly Linear, Drawn Up With Letters, And Only In Football Is The Field Itself Lined Like A Sheet Of Notebook Paper.

In Manhasset You Were Either Yankees Or Mets, Rich Or Poor, Sober Or Drunk...you Were 'gaelic' Or 'garlic," As One Schoolmate Told Me, And I Couldn't Admit, To Him Or Myself, That I Had Both Irish And Italian Ancestors.

While I Fear That We're Drawn To What Abandons Us, And To What Seems Most Likely To Abandon Us, In The End I Believe We're Defined By What Embraces Us.

Of Course Many Bars In Manhasset, Like Bars Everywhere, Were Nasty Places, Full Of Pickled People Marinating In Regret.