When R.I. was the epicenter of baseball
It’s around noon, on a gloriously warm, sunny, late-winter day that sings of the coming baseball season. I am standing on the quiet corner of Messer and Willow streets, in Providence’s West End, while filthy plastic bags and scraps of paper scurry across the intersection in a stiff March breeze.
The occasional customer strolls in and out of an orange-coated grocery on the first floor of a triple-decker, casting puzzled glances at the man biding his time in the black sunglasses and dark business suit. This neighborhood has its share of historic homes, aluminum siding and street gangs.
