One year, in the early 1990s, a group of us working for NBC Election Unit somehow managed to get a permit to play softball in Central Park. Tough permit to get, and we were stupidly lucky to get it. Anybody who wanted could play; you didn’t have to work for NBC. It was a pretty rag-tag team. In addition, it was the last slot on Sunday night, which meant that we got to play late, until it started to get dark. Fun games. Fun summer. I don’t remember even keeping score, though I’m sure somebody did.

One Sunday night, after the game, with the last of the late summer day fading away behind the tall, proud buildings circling Central Park, we all tumbled into some rando Irish bar near Columbus Circle. Beer, basic cocktails, some crusty Irish comfort food warming on the steam trays. It wasn’t a crowded bar that night, maybe five or ten other customers.

I imagine normally we would have had a beer or two, and then we’d all split up and take our separate subway trains home. Just another fine late-summer NYC evening.

But that night, Francis Grant brought his guitar.

Francis was a talented musician (his brothers were talented too, though not with us that day). We threw our baseball equipment in a corner, ordered a couple pitchers of beer, and pulled a few tables together.

I don’t remember how it started. I imagine Francis pulled out his guitar and started strumming something (probably a Beatles song, knowing Francis). Somebody at our table started singing along. Another person joined in. Francis started playing a new song. More people joined in. Now, it wasn’t just the folks at our table singing, but other people in the bar. Someone shouted out the name of a song (again, I don’t remember the song, and again, knowing Francis, it was probably a Beatles song). Francis played it, as we all sang along. Someone else shouted out a request, he played it, we all sang. He didn’t know every song requested, and had to turn down a few, but his ability to pick out the bones of a tune, just enough to allow us all to follow along as we sang, was preternatural.

We spent a few hours at that bar, drinking beer and singing old familiar songs with strangers, as the dusk turned to dark, and the lights of the city began to blaze, and the long New York City weekend drew to a close.

We all took our separate subway routes home, bumping and jostling home to Brooklyn and Queens and New Jersey, never realizing we were forming a memory that would last us for the rest of our lives. It’s a New York City that doesn’t exist anymore. It's a mystical place, a Brigadoon, difficult to visit, except in stories and memories, photographs and music and art.

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The 2000 Yankees/Mets World Series was a disappointing mess, and I traveled to NYC and stayed with Francis and his wife Laurie while the Mets listlessly toppled and folded in five games (we witnessed one at Shea together, and Derek Jeter hit the first pitch out of the park; Shea Stadium was as silent as a tomb).

During one of those games, Turk Wendell was on the mound for the Mets. We were watching the game on TV at someone’s house. Turk (one of my favorite Mets, I even have a signed baseball of his I got from an old girlfriend’s parents) wore a necklace of shark teeth whenever he pitched.

Some kid in the room asked Francis what kind of teeth were on his necklace.

Francis turned to him and said, “Son, those are Yankee teeth.”

It was a forgettable series, and we lost. But Francis’ one-liner lives on.

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The year my first wife and I adopted our two daughters, Francis flew out to visit Diana and me and meet the girls. It was a welcome visit. Parenthood is hard, and we were in our first few months of it. His first full day there I took the day off. We put both the girls (aged 2 and 3 at the time) in the stroller and walked all over the streets of Pueblo, for hours and hours. We ended up in City Park (my favorite spot in Pueblo), hung out in the playground near the zoo, before turning around and walking home. We walked all day, talking, catching up, telling stories, taking care of the girls.

We went to a Mets game (of course) up in Denver. Francis wore a Mets uniform that day. My kids were convinced he was an actual Met player, one of the guys my Dad and I regularly watched on TV. They even called him “Met,” rather than Francis. It wasn’t until years later they learned the truth. They thought he actually played for the team.

His visit to Colorado was a kind gesture from a good friend, at a time when I needed one. We did a few other things. We went to the Sand Dunes and a Sky Sox game. We played Wiffleball. Mostly we hung out with my new family, and talked about our hopes and dreams, our struggles and fears, the lasting power of friendship and family.

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There are a hundred other stories I could tell. We frequented a lot of bars, we chased a lot of girls, and we watched a lot of baseball. I witnessed him get married, where I danced the Macarena for the first time (it was a new thing, which seriously dates me). We saw the best baseball game I ever saw together, the 15 inning "Grand slam single" game, a game nearly no one will remember but Mets fans. That time, those friendships, our beloved New York City, no longer exist. It's a ghost town. Crickets. Tumbleweeds.

We sang familiar songs with strangers in an Irish bar under a long-ago Manhattan twilight, as long shadows stretched across the tireless New York streets. We witnessed a thousand wins, a thousand losses together.

We’ll all miss you, Francis. I’m singing Beatles songs right now, thinking of you. Rest in peace, my friend.