Some many years ago, about eighty, I was a kid growing up in Brooklyn, New York, and during the long summer months, our game was baseball. Every morning, an assorted group would show up at a local sandlot for pickup games. We usually could scrounge up a pair of too-heavy-to-break bats, but the ball was a problem. Balls cost 35 cents for a college- or big leagues-quality ball. We rarely had that between us. So, we had to settle for the five-cent baseball. We never knew where they came from because at that time, there was no law requiring the posting ...