MILWAUKEE — One of my grandfather’s favorite things to do when we played catch was to speed it up, to hasten the transfer from his glove to his hand or skip it all together by making a barehanded catch and then whipping the baseball back to me at a variety of angles.
I can still see the blur of his hands. This was his three-card monte. His sleight of hand would go faster and faster and faster, and he would sometimes inch closer and closer to me until I cracked, laughing, breathless and unable to catch up.
For Francis Goold, playing catch was comedy.