I Read a Book Once.

About thirty years ago, I was in a conversation with a friend I spent a lot of time with back then. We were in our twenties, still growing, still fumbling toward some version of adulthood. I was probably talking about a book I had read, on baseball, or the mafia, or the Cold War. Those were the topics I was into at the time.

I’ve always read. Not because I thought I was particularly bright. In fact, it was the opposite. I didn’t think I was smart at all. Reading was how I tried to close the gap. To understand the world, to feel capable of having real conversations about things that mattered. To get some clarity, or at least coherence.

In the middle of the conversation, he stopped me and said,
“I read a book once. Distant Replay. By Jerry Kramer.”

I asked him if that was really the only book he’d ever read.
He said yes. “Reading’s boring.”

I just said, “Uh.”
And let it hang there.
No retort. No lecture. Just silence.

That moment has never left me.

Not because he hadn’t read much but because he had decided that was enough. One book. One moment of effort. And then the door shut. I didn’t fully understand why it unsettled me back then. But now I do, he had given up on curiosity. And without curiosity, what’s left?

We eventually drifted apart. I no longer see him. And if I’m honest, there are times I’ve judged him, especially when I’ve heard some of the opinions he holds now, usually delivered with conviction but without context. That same dismissiveness he had toward reading shows up in how he sees the world, certain, stubborn, uninterested in learning more.

Meanwhile, I kept reading. Hundreds of books. Some that confirmed what I already believed. Others that cracked open what I thought was true. I don’t read to be “right.” I read to stay open. Because when new information comes in, I want the ability and have the fucking humility, to rethink.

That’s how Baseball Buddha was born. It wasn’t just about the game. It was about why the game matters. It’s about the people in the stands. The culture around it. The stories we carry into a ballpark and the ones we take home afterward. Baseball Buddha is me wrestling with the deeper stuff, about identity, memory, impermanence, character. And yes, about joy.

If all I did was write about stats or trades, I’d feel like I missed the point. I love baseball. But if baseball was all I was, I’d feel like my life came up short. Baseball Buddha has been my way of using the game to talk about everything else, nostalgia, failure, redemption, dignity, silence. The things you can’t always measure in box scores.

And I wouldn’t be able to do it if I didn’t read. If I didn’t reflect. If I didn’t keep trying to understand people including the friend who read one book and decided that was plenty.

We were close once. But the truth is, we made different choices. He stopped questioning. I never could.

He read a book once. And that was it.
I kept going. And I still am.

Because for me, staying curious isn’t just a habit.
It’s a way of being.
It’s the foundation of Baseball Buddha.
And it’s the only way I know how to live.