The summer of ’86

The television was in his room. I sat on his orthopedic bed and he sat on his La-Z-Boy, both of us using remote controls to lift and lower our torsos and legs until we were in suitable game-watching position . . . During one game, my grandfather suddenly maneuvered the La-Z-Boy into an alert 90-degree angle and began blowing air through a disconnected French horn mouthpiece. He had been the leader of a Dixieland band in his younger years.

The things he played on the mouthpiece were all indecipherable, with one exception. In a late inning the Red Sox got something cooking, and the old man took a deep breath and blew a monotone, spittle-thin version of the cavalry call — “Brapada brap pa braaa.’’

I didn’t like it. It was too corny and hopeful. Even though the Red Sox had been playing well that year, and even though I was starting to believe, I still preferred to approach each game armored with the protective conviction that my team would blow it, no matter what.

“Brapada brap pa braaa,’’ my grandfather played again. He glanced at me and smiled, his frayed gray eyebrows rising.

“Brapada brap pa braaa,’’ he played.

“Charge,’’ I finally said.

— from “Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards’’ by Josh Wilker