Recently at a funeral for a catcher dead too young at the age of 55, his college teammates recalled his showboating antics. One game, they recalled, the catcher homered his first time up. Watching the ball sail off into the distance, he tossed the bat away dramatically, embarked on an emphatic trot, and for the coup de grace sang out loud in his Boston accent, “Goodnight, Irene!”

The catcher’s next time up, an enormous din erupted, loud whistles and a call arising in unison for the pitcher to enforce one of baseball’s unwritten rules, stipulating that hitters shouldn’t show up pitchers after going yard. The cry to “stick it in his ear,” as one now middle-aged former infielder mourning a friend fondly remembered, came not from the gods of baseball, nor even from the adversaries that the catcher’s hot-doggery had no doubt affronted, but from his own dugout.