The author (right) and Doug at Umpachene Falls, New Marlborough, Massachusetts.

“I love you,” Doug said to me.

“I love you, too,” I answered before we pushed the red hang-up buttons on our iPhones at the end of our weekly call.

My wife gave me a funny look, as she did weekly, at the affectionate way we always concluded our conversations. I suspect his wife did, too.

Doug has been my best friend since 1980, when we played Little League baseball together in Providence, Rhode Island. His team, which had yellow uniforms, was coached by a rough guy who would line the boys up before every game and whack their groins with a bat to make sure they were wearing their cups.

My team, outfitted in blue uniforms, was sponsored by a social club in the working-class Fox Point section of the city. Our end-of-the-season party was held in the smoky, dimly lit bar of our sponsors, where we sat at chipped wooden tables to consume our sodas and pizza.

A couple of regulars, parked in their usual spots, would watch us with bemused smiles as they nursed their beers. Some of us would end up occupying those same bar stools when we grew up. Some wouldn’t.

At the time, it was hard to predict who would fall into which camp.

Doug and I met on the base paths, though we can’t remember if he was running and I was playing first base or the other way around. Looking at us, it wasn’t obvious that this was a friendship that would deepen for decades.

Even at that age, he was tall, handsome and had an easy way with people that drew them in. I was of average height, skinny and more of a smartass. He was a Red Sox fan, while I followed my dad, a native of the Bronx, in rooting for the Yankees. His family was Protestant; mine Jewish. He became a lawyer; me, a doctor.

Our relationships with our fathers drew us together, though, as we both struggled to navigate them. My dad helped coach my baseball team, and in an effort to dismiss any accusations of favouritism, went overboard in proving that I would receive no special treatment.

He drove to games, the team’s baseball equipment packed loosely in the trunk of his Dodge Dart, while I walked separately. When I struck out, he threw his hat into the dirt of the dugout’s floor, disgusted at my inadequacies. If I missed a throw to first base, he wouldn’t talk to me for days.

Doug’s Dad, an owlish history professor who spent most of his time in a home office from which we were eternally banned, never attended........

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