“Against the ball, put the laser against the ball, kid! Madone.” I was folded over on one knee at Boston’s North End bocce courts, trying to get the guys a measurement. Eyeing the distance between a bocce ball and a pallino often doesn’t work, so Sammy Viscione comes armed with both a tape and a laser measure, though his sciatica makes it impossible for him to bend.

So he asked me to do the laser measurement. I’m inept with tools, and the guys kept hollering, “Against the ball, kid!” Someone else said, “Bocce, baby!” in that keyed-up way that meant he lives for this.