"I just prayed she wasn't Black," the directorsaid. "Then, what would I have done?"

Triple A baseball is a turnstile. You're eithergoing in, to the big leagues, or out, to anotherfarm club, or, worse, the real world. The RichmondBraves, like their major league namesake andaffiliate, the Atlanta Braves, were not good. Theylost far more than they won.

Dreams of winning the International Leaguechampionship dissolved early in the summer. Duringthe rest of the season, each Richmond Brave foughtto put "some personal numbers on the board," asthe catcher, John Mizerock, explained to me aftera game.

He said the end of the season was about"kicking butt." If you kicked butt, you got tospend September in Atlanta. If you didn't, you gotto spend it with your loved ones and your sorrows.

A friend of mine at the paper insisted sportsare ridiculous. What's the point, she said. Win.Lose. Tie. What does it matter?

I explained to her that sports is its ownculture. It has its own language. Its heroes. Itsvillains. (Who is hero and who villain depends, ofcourse, on who you root for.)

Sports has its own rights and wrongs, carefullydefined in The Rule Book.

She did not believe me. She said sports is asilly pursuit, an extraneous part of society, oflife.

This summer I learned that neither she nor Iwas correct. Sports is not, as many have said, areflection of society. It is society. Sports islike the Southside Speedway, all awash in gray