Los Angeles Times

Living in the pastime

LOS ANGELES - It starts with a baseball.

Each person who attends the monthly BasebALZ program in a conference room at the offices of Alzheimer's Los Angeles is handed one, faded and scuffed.

For the next two hours, those suffering from Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia will hold that baseball.

Some will clutch it tightly as they listen to stories about former baseball greats. Others will roll it around in their palms as they watch presentations about baseball's historic moments. At some point, they will be asked to reach back into their own baseball history.

Through the magic of those 108 stitches, they will remember.

"My friends and I lived near each other, we'd play together," Al Hassan, 82, says with a grin. "I wasn't very good,

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