He carefully positioned me, took a step back, then moved me to the left a little. He had always taken lots of pictures. He was always telling me to smile, or freeze, or wave. I just chalked it up as a “director thing.”

“Okay, now, smile!”

I tilted my head to the left and smiled huge.

“Beautiful!” he said, stowing the camera in the pocket of his jeans and leaning in to kiss me quickly. Dave grabbed my hand and pulled me behind him the rest of the way to the turnstiles. The tickets had been courtesy of his lawyer, and the seats were great, ten rows back on the third base line. This was a big game; the Dodgers were playing the Giants. There were almost as many San Francisco fans in the stadium as there were locals.

We settled into our seats and ordered our first round of beer from the vendor guy. I grinned at Dave as I bit into my Dodger Dog. I purposely let a little mustard smear on my cheek so he could smudge it off with his finger.

As the national anthem sounded through the tinny loudspeakers, Dave’s hand rested on my knee and he gave me a little squeeze. The night was beautiful, and I was glad we had arrived early. I hated getting to a game too late to hear the national anthem. It was like running late for a movie and missing the previews; you felt like you were missing a big part of the show. I sipped my beer and watched Nomar Garciaparra step into the on-deck circle and begin going through his notorious routine to warm up. He swung the bat, tightened his gloves, touched each shoulder, and tightened his gloves again. I was sure sport shrinks across the country must have analyzed the slugger’s routine, trying to label it obsessive-compulsive or strictly superstition. Nomar stepped out of the box, walked it off a few steps, and then stepped back to begin the routine all over again.

“That guy’s crazy,” Dave commented into my ear.

Dave loved Nomar when he played in Boston, but after he left the team and they went on to win the World Series the following month, he always blamed Nomar for being the curse that plagued the Red Sox (although he played there for only nine seasons, and the “curse of the Bambino” had hung over the team since 1918).

“Nomar wears number five, and I read somewhere that all of his rituals are in groups of five,” I told Dave. “He taps his sneakers five times, he’ll tug the gloves five times, and he even signs autographs in groups of five. If he signs for six people, he’ll keep going until he reaches ten signatures.”

Dave was unimpressed. “I’ve never read that, and I’m the one who grew up in Boston and has watched this guy play for years,” he said, his eyes on the field.