The Bocce League at Riverside Park

Every Wednesday evening from June to August, there's a bocce league at Riverside Park, on two dusty courts beside the river. My neighbor Sal invited me to join his team this summer. I'd never played.

Bocce is simple. You throw a little ball, called the pallino, and then everyone tries to roll their big balls as close to it as they can. It's simple the way chess is simple.

The league is mostly older Italian men who have been playing together for forty years, and they take it very seriously. They argue in Italian. They measure distances with string and a tape measure. They accuse each other of cheating in the friendliest possible way.

They welcomed me immediately. Sal taught me to put a little spin on the ball. A man named Vito taught me to curse in Sicilian. Another brought homemade wine in an unmarked bottle that tasted like summer.

At the end-of-season party in August, I won "Most Improved Player." It's a bocce ball spray-painted gold. Vito kissed me on both cheeks.