If a man can chart with any accuracy his evolution from small boy to barfly, mine began on a hot summer night in 1972. Seven years old, driving through Manhasset with my mother, I looked out the window and saw nine men in orange softball uniforms racing around Memorial Field, the silhouette of Charles Dickens silk-screened in black on their chests. “Who is that?” I asked my mother. “Some men from Dickens,” she said. “See your Uncle Charlie? And his boss, Steve?”
