The Ultimate Baseball Fan, by Ira Rosofsky:

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In my travels to nursing homes I have come to know many memorable people, perhaps none more so than Sean Hanrahan, a poor Irish kid from Southie in Boston.

When I met him, he was shortly to become one of the few humans alive to have had the personal enjoyment of the last two Red Sox baseball championships--1918 and 2004.

On my way to his room at rural Meldon Meadows, the nurse pulled me aside and warned me he was cranky, unfriendly, and in a world of pain. A fit ninety-six, he fell off a ladder while hanging a picture and broke his leg. At that age, a fracture is usually a one-way ticket to institutional confinement. But Sean was determined to get home.

Born in Boston, 1908, he wasn't at the 1918 World Series clincher. He was poor, plus there were only 36,000 seats. "I didn't even hear it on the radio. There was no radio. I heard the newsboys down the street hawking the late-edition extra."

I met Sean on my fifty-eighth birthday, October 27, 2004--almost old enough to cash in my IRA but still too young for Medicare. Sean and all the other residents provide me with--apologies to Wordsworth--intimations of my own mortality. I also remember that date because in the evening the Sox were to finish their four-game sweep of the Cardinals. Despite the nurse's warning, Sean was in a celebratory, talkative mood--wearing his Bosox hat.

"I'm a bit unhappy I can't be at the game. My grandson told me if they ever made it this bar, he'd take me. But I got my TV right here, and the nurse has a beer cooling for me in their fridge."

That night, stuffed with New Haven pizza, I'm sitting in front of my TV--birthday cake on my lap, more than a shot of single malt whisky in a goblet by my side. Long-suffering Mets fan that I am, at least it's not the Yankees, I think, as I watch the Red Sox get off their eighty-six-year-old schneid, completing their four-game sweep of the Cardinals--their first since their last championship over the forever hapless Cubs back in 1918.

The following week, I'm back at Meldon Meadows, and Sean is gone. My heart skips a beat, but he's not dead. He's home.

I have no way of knowing, but I imagine Sean still around three years later--almost one hundred--seeing the Sox--in another four-game sweep--repeat as champs yet again.

Even at ninety-six, life can go on.

Ira Rosofsky, Nasty, Brutish, and Long, Avery, Penguin Books