The Atlantic Home

When I put my son to bed at around 8:45 Wednesday night, after watching a few innings of the World Series, I read him a story and unavoidably looked at two items I've placed in his room: a 1956 Sports Illustrated cover illustration of a young superstar, Mickey Mantle; and a dinky plastic Yankees helmet autographed by a now-81-year-old man in New Jersey named Gil McDougald.

The framed cover is on a wall and the helmet is atop a bookcase. Baseball was a potent vehicle for the assimilation of my German immigrant father into American culture. He arrived in New York from Munich in 1927, the year Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs.


He went to lots of games and, when he married late in life and had a son, he took the son to Yankee Stadium all the time. We'd walk to 86th Street and Lexington Avenue to take what I've always known as the Woodlawn-Jerome (now romantically renamed the No. 4 train), watch a game (for a few bucks, lower grandstand, between home and first), maybe two games on a Sunday, then head home.

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