A moving, funny, inventive parenting memoir, written in a surprising form an encyclopedia of failure in sports What can a new father learn about parenthood from reading sports almanacs? For most dads, the answer to this question is nothing. But to Josh Wilker, whose life and writing have been defined by sports fandom, all of the joy, helplessness, and absurdity of parenthood are present between the lines. After all, what better way to think about losing control than Eugenio Velezs forty-five consecutive at-bats without a hit? How better to understand ridiculous joy than the NFL career of Walter Achiu, whose nickname was Sneeze? In the stories of sports figures large and small, Wilker finds the pathos in success and the humor in losing. As the terrified father of a one-day-old, Wilker recalls the 1986 World Series, when the moment was too big for the Red Sox.