"Perhaps the most elucidating thing Hample told me in our first conversation was this: 'You should know that anyone who hangs out in the stands at baseball games with any regularity is not to be trusted.' To which he later added, 'Except me.'"
This immersive longform piece kind of fell in my lap in late June, and I ended up spending a good chunk of my summer hanging out with and writing about ballhawking luminary Zack Hample. It's a fun end-of-summer read that my editor Greg Olear says is "about baseball and not about baseball." I like that.
Also, thanks are in order to Tatiana Ryckman and The Youngs Writing Residency, where I drafted a good portion of this; Matthew Goodman for talking out my ideas with me; and Joseph Mitchell for writing so many essays worthy of emulation.