Dunno about you, dear reader, but I’ve just about had it with the literary class and their obsession with the Boston Red Sox. That the team makes its home in the bastion of America’s intellectual elite explains plenty, but it certainly doesn’t forgive it. Thankfully, Nicholas Dawidoff’s new memoir, The Crowd Sounds Happy: A Story of Love, Madness, and Baseball, isn’t about the Red Sox exactly; it describes his childhood growing up in New York and New Haven, Conn., the son of a deranged father and a social outcast. His only escape, of course, is through baseball—and you can guess which team. But rather than project the dreams and frustrations of a whole nation of fans on the team like a legion of writers before him, Dawidoff, a former Sports Illustrated reporter turned award-winning author, chooses to chronicle how the Red Sox and the sport helped soothe only his own tortured soul. Dawidoff discusses and signs copies of his work at 3 p.m. at Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Free. (202) 364-1919. —Mike DeBonis