We spoke of baseball, there at the bar, with the empty seat between us that custom demands of strangers. His ball cap spoke of tractors, not of a particular team, but the most-local team had been the topic of his first non-liquid question to the barkeep. The bartender didn't know the answer, but I did; thus are conversations born.

I was in the neighborhood mostly as an escort, but had left the lady to her own amusements. She needed the space, and I needed the beer, so I was nursing it tenderly and watching the clock for the time that she and I might resume. I hadn't stopped in to be chatty, but the other man had, it seemed; perhaps it was always his way.

He seemed a stranger there as well, and we spoke of teams and ballparks in the way one does when finding common ground, when establishing yourself in a new place based on what you know about the others. His face was open under his cap, him happy to be talking, and I looked for things I might know in it as we spoke. For a time, after all, we were going to be together, and one might as well make a good place to share when that happens.

When I spoke of the newest ballpark of a team some hours away, and of the wonderful time that I'd once had in it, his eyes widened and he drew a sudden breath to speak as well. He hesitated then, embarrassed almost at how quickly he'd wanted to spill to a stranger, and looked at his beer for a moment. When he looked up again, a small smile was crinkling the lines at the corner of his eyes, and his tone was slightly softer - he'd decided in my favor, he'd tell the tale. "The last time I was at that park... well, it's a heckuva story."

I lifted my glass from the bar, and tilted my head to listen - as it turns out, I like stories. His smile bent a little farther as he retook that first breath and began, and my eyes found a clock to be sure I had time for this Rime of the Ancient Sports Fan.

He spoke of an uncle, two states away, who'd always been a fan of that team in that park. Aged 85, at loose ends after losing his wife, the uncle had come through my companion's town for some days. It came out the uncle had never seen his team play, not in eight decades of fandom - two states away, a wife, kids - he'd never made it. Urged by his own wife, my new friend said "let's go" - and he drove his uncle two hours to that park.

They went there as walk-ups, no tickets in hand, and dealt for some sharply with a man near the place. His eyes shone with pride at his daring to have done that, as he described how fantastic the seats came to be. The ballpark was new then, and he spoke of its beauty - how splendid the place looked from those perfect seats. I nodded him on, as he spoke of the game, as he spoke of the players he saw on that night.

His uncle was happiest about seeing the aging Hall-Of-Famer the team then had playing in the outfield. He listened that night, through the game, to the uncle's tales of that man in other games, ones he'd heard on the radio while driving, or seen on TV after hard days - and each at-bat the two of them would discuss and praise the man's swing. I broke in to say I'd been fond of that guy too, and we traded some thoughts on the way he had played.

(Men admire motion in others, and well-timed reactions - when we remembered that player together, that was the whole of what we spoke of. It's women who go for still pictures of things - he wore this, he was holding that, there he stood. Men perceive things as they move - there she was, just walkin' down the street, snapping her fingers, shuffling her feet. I speak to men, it seems, relatively rarely - it was a pleasant change, as I talked to my sports fan, not to have to translate what it was I recalled of the player as I spoke of it.)

Having established I knew of the player his uncle was watching, my stranger friend turned in his seat, warm to his story. He leaned to me, placing elbows on the bar between us so his hands could gesture. Crisp play-by-play followed, of the bottom of the ninth, and how the Hall-Of-Famer had come up, one run down, man on first. When you speak of a home run, your hands should describe its trajectory - from the way his flattened palm rose up from the bar, and my memory of the player, I could see what had happened to the last pitch of the game as clearly as if in a newsreel. "They won by one," my friend finished, leaning back, and beaming at the brilliance of the moment.

He squared back toward the bar then, as I took a drink, and acknowledged it was a heckuva story. We sat shoulder-to-shoulder, one seat apart, and his voice was level as he added the epilogue.

"My uncle talked about that to everyone we saw, each time we were together after that. He really was a fan, really was a good man. Eighty-five years old, family raised, a good wife buried - and he said to me once some time later that going to that game was the best night of his life.

"It was about a year later he died - heart attack, quick, I guess, at least. I still can't think of that park without thinking of all that. I had no idea that night would turn out like that when I started, but I'm so glad I did it. So glad."

I was glad I still had one large swallow of beer - I try to keep one at hand, because any number of situations suddenly demand them. I finished that swallow, and kept my eyes front, as I said again to my stranger friend, "Heckuva story." I didn't need to look at him to see his face - newsreel clarity was already happening behind my eyes. I know how it feels to have followed a whim, and to know only later it became something brilliant, and to know it can never be done again, regardless of how you might like to. I know how men move as they react to that thought, and it's best to let them do that on their own. My eyes, therefore, stayed forward as I placed my empty on the bar and stood, and I only turned to him once my manner had shown him that I wasn't going to pry.

I made my remarks of departing, words to the effect that I had a friend shuffling her feet somewhere that I should find, and that it was my time to do that. He mentioned his wife was probably waiting as well, the lady whose still-picture thought had set in motion the night which he'd just recounted. We traded a rueful grin; we both knew that we all move back to our picture frames, eventually. I thanked him for the brilliancy he'd shared with me, in that elliptical way that men have, and he nodded as we parted and raised his hand to acknowledge, in the unspoken way that men do.

I was pleased to spot the lady I'd arrived with almost immediately as I left the bar, and to just regard her as we moved toward each other. I tried to lose myself on purpose in her reaction as she saw me, and in the friendly open way she changed her pace. I knew that soon enough I'd be wondering how brilliant our spur-of-the-moment trip had turned out for her, really, and I ached to be so certain that it wouldn't measure up.