After writing, it was my second childhood obsession. Yes, I was in love with more than 300 men.       A week rarely went by when I didn’t reaffirm my affection by plopping a quarter down on the drug store counter and taking them home with me. I greeted each with an excitement that made me crave them more.      I had them all, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron. They were my kind of men. Yes, it was a girl’s dirty little secret: I collected baseball cards, hoarded them with a devotion that exceeded that of many of my male counterparts.      However, somewhere over time, my collection ended up in my cousin’s hands and was lost forever. Now, what would those 1960s cards be worth today? Please, it’ll make me cry again if I think about it too much.       As the boys of summer have returned to the diamond, it does not shine for me as it once did. But I have sweet memories of seasons past when baseball was the national pastime and my passion.      Baseball defined my life for so many years. I lived it. I breathed it. My love affair with the sport still influences my adult life. For example, my attitude toward pantyhose hadn’t changed much since I wore my first pair in sixth grade. That’s the glorious day I ruined them by sliding into home plate for the winning run. Boy, did I get the run.       And yes, I was just one of the boys, running for the ballfield every weather-permitting recess, and our girls’ softball team won the city championship one year. Catching was my passion. Just ask my poor knees. They still pay the price. My body bore the proud scars, cuts, bruises, smears and bumps of colliding headfirst into the closest base.      But that’s what baseball was all about. It was about winning, about pushing yourself to the limits, about being a member of the team, and did I mention winning?      Yet, I became disillusioned with baseball about 20 years ago. Who had changed? Me or it? I believed baseball had abandoned me. It had become all ego and money, vacating the spirit that had once transformed me from a bystander to a team player. Yet, I admit I could’ve outgrown the sport, too.      But a tiny part of me always wanted to recapture that pleasure. So, I realized one of my lifelong dreams this summer by visiting Cooperstown, New York. That’s where the heart of all true baseball fans eventually leads them. It just took me 40 years to get there. And I’m probably the only woman in America who dragged her 16-year-old son along. He doesn’t give a hoot about baseball.      But I was there, where the lifeblood of the sport spilled into the streets of the humble town. I could feel it just by standing outside the museum 20 minutes early. To speed up the agonizing wait, my son and I window shopped. Oh, all the books, all the bits of history. I was in heaven.      My son nodded periodically, saying nothing until the word “Look!” passed his teen-age lips. And I did, excited and wondering what bit of baseball history had caught his eye.      “Look!” he said. “They’ve got Wild Cherry Pepsi!”      I sighed.       “You mean to tell me that you’re standing in the midst of some of the greatest moments of this country’s history and a can of soda is what turned you on.”      “Well, Mom, I haven’t seen any so far on the trip.”      Yes, he was right. He had seen nothing yet until I pushed him through the turnstiles of the museum. That’s when it all came flooding back to me. Why I had loved the game. Why it had inspired me so. We walked through the hall of fame with all the shining plaques, once a glimmer in a young girl’s eyes.      Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, their history I had learned so well. And then Johnny Bench, Bob Gibson, Ernie Banks, their history I lived firsthand by watching them on TV or in person. For an instant, I could smell the hot-dogs smothered in mustard and relish. Taste the salt of the popcorn on my lips. Feel the shells of the roasted peanuts cracking in my fingers. See the foamy cups of beer that we had to pass down the row. Hear the bat’s victory over the ball that I prayed would someday come my way.      It was then that my lips started to quiver. “Look,” I told my son, pointing to the stars who had been inducted in the 70’s and 80’s. But I could say no more as my eyes watered. It was a few long moments before I could even utter, “These were the players I grew up with.”      My heart stopped again as we walked into the small area devoted to women in baseball. All I could hear was the emotional theme from “A League of Their Own,” a video I’ve replayed to near extinction, a soundtrack that fills my day often as an inspiration. I was mesmerized, studying every artifact at least twice.       It was at that moment that I knew the truth. If I’d been born in that time, that’s where I would’ve wanted to be. I would’ve been one of those girls with dirt in my skirt. I closed my eyes and I was 12 years old again ....      With muddy sneakers from playing the minute the rain stopped. With the courage to say “damn!” when I missed the pitch, as long as Mom wasn’t there. In heaven from caressing the worn leather mitt. Cheering my teammates on to cream the other team.       I wasn’t afraid of anything.      A thousand miles away from the sandlots of my youth, I had come home again, the day after my 40th birthday. Old enough now to order the beer that once sloshed over my fingers, but better yet, old enough to understand why a grown woman could cry over a boy’s game.       After all, it WAS baseball.