Then two summers ago, sitting together in their regular Wrigley Field seats on the third-base side, at the seventh-inning stretch, Larry said, "Al, something important I've got to talk with you about. Do you have time for a drink after the game?" Feldman answered that of course he did, and to himself thought, at goddamn last, he's going to tell me that he slept with Elaine, has felt terrible about it all these years and wants my forgiveness. 

After the game-the Cubs lost to the Braves 6-4-they went to a bar at the corner of Sheffield and Addison. The place was filled with people mostly in their twenties-attractive girls in cut-off jeans, guys with weightlifter arms-and noisy. Everyone seemed almost unbearably healthy. Lots of sexual vibrations in the air. As a non-contender in this game, Feldman felt even older than his age. He and Larry found two seats at the bar. They ordered beers, Heinekens. 

"Something I have to tell you, Al," Larry said. "It's been on my mind for a while."

Between the seventh-inning stretch and this moment Feldman had been composing his forgiveness speech. It all happened a long time ago, it's history, no harm done really, Larry was not to give it further thought, at this point in their lives it was nothing to worry about . . . 

"Three months ago," Larry said, "I was diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease. I haven't told anyone else."