Preview

Preface

In 2016 I first published my memoir, Ghosts of October: Reflections on Life, Death and Baseball, through Create Space—a company that allowed authors to self-publish books and sell them exclusively on Amazon’s website.

I christened my vanity publishing company “Hard Nock Press” in homage to Albert Jay Nock, a prominent mid-twentieth-century libertarian, whose most popular book was entitled Our Enemy, The State. Nock described in chilling detail how centralized governments, systematically and without exception, operate to rob individuals of their liberty. His views were radical but, in my view, rational and revelatory. Nock argued that the two primary goals of all big governments are conquest and confiscation. As I grow older, I realize that the central thesis of Nock’s book has been proven right time and time again. But that is for another story in another time.

Ghosts of October was an eclectic and extremely personal book. In it I discussed, among other things, my Brooklyn childhood, my unique relationship with my star-crossed twin brother, my old school street cop father, my thoughts on various aspects of the game of baseball, and some prominent cases in which I worked as a lawyer for survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

Now, in 2026, no longer practicing law, I have a rare opportunity to take a step back and provide some candid insight into my fascinating, at times controversial,  and somewhat bizarre thirty-five-year career as a lawyer. In particular, I offer a new and fresh perspective about an extremely difficult yet vital topic: the legal landscape for survivors of childhood sexual abuse in New York State, whose previously time-barred claims were revived on Valentine’s Day 2019, when the New York State Legislature (and Governor Andrew Cuomo) enacted The New York Child Victims Act.

In the first edition of Ghosts I attempted a most difficult trick: find commonality between baseball and childhood sexual abuse. One astute reviewer observed that I used baseball to give myself “an anchor through and sorely needed break from [my] intense professional struggles.” In retrospect, I think that by elevating baseball to a central part of the narrative, I subconsciously tried to give the reader that same kind of break. I do the same thing, this time more consciously, in this revised and updated version of the book.

Baseball, the most American of games, and still a profoundly important bonding tool for fathers and sons, is a perfect counterweight to the heavy, ugly component of my professional life, in which I used my best efforts—sometimes realized, sometimes unfulfilled, always somewhat quixotic—to find a measure of justice for scores of men and women who, during what should have been their innocent childhood years, were raped and sexually assaulted.

This new edition of Ghosts of October contains more than one hundred pages of new material. This book, which provides a much more comprehensive analysis of various legal issues and conundrums faced by some of the brave sexual abuse survivors that I represented, is quite a different animal from its predecessor.  In my not-so-humble opinion, it merits both a far wider audience and a slightly modified name. Hence, Ghosts of October: Further Deliberations on Life, Law, and Baseball, is born. Presto. The second goal has been accomplished; the first remains to be seen (but I am an eternal optimist).

In a similar vein, “Hard Nock Press,” which features the name of an obscure, long-dead social commentator, is shuttered for good. Our new publishing company is differentiated from the first with just one new letter, but that lone letter changes the context entirely. “Hard Knock Press” will be far easier to locate on the World Wide Web and will likely dissuade many from thinking that I am a horrible speller.

Although this version of the book contains many baseball stories (including all which were published in Ghosts of October’s first edition), its primary focus shifts to the law—and some of the insane and absurd rules, procedures, practices, and prevailing mindsets, which make it so damn difficult for sexual abuse survivors to get anything close to the kind of justice and accountability they deserve from those who harmed them and allowed them to be harmed.

The sexual abuse of children is a pernicious problem in society which needs to be vigorously examined before it may be addressed properly so that the appropriate prophylactic measures may be implemented. Because of its grotesque ugliness, childhood sexual abuse is something no one really wants to think or talk about. It will therefore continue to fester and flourish unless and until a harsh but transparent spotlight shines directly upon the issue. Without this much-needed illumination, sexual abusers and their enablers will continue to operate freely in their dark corners of perversion, debasement, and cowardice, while continuing to evade justice and accountability, even when there is an avalanche of evidence that points to their culpability.

This book is my effort to bring some light to the darkness of the debate and compel the reader to engage in an often unpleasant but absolutely essential task: to consider our justice system’s response to childhood sexual abuse with an open heart and unflinching eyes. Only then can the excremental legal status quo in this area of law be changed. Only then will “victims” be able to shed that awful and unfortunate label once and for all and become true and whole survivors.

Perhaps then we will be able to think (and write) a lot more about baseball and other more pleasant, soul-enriching activities.