The Violent World of Youth Baseball Dads

On the Long Island Inferno, two fathers, both with complicated pasts, took it all too far.

View in Browser Inside Youth Baseball's Most Notorious Dad-On-Dad Rivalry Sons grow up, and one day dads must leave Baseball Heaven, too. But Bobby Sanfilippo hasn't moved on. During his years at Baseball Heaven, he found himself enmeshed in an epic dad-on-dad rivalry with a man named John Reardon that led tabloids to call him "a Suffolk County Steinbrenner," "seriously sick," and one of the worst dads in youth-sports history. Nine years later, he still keeps a file of dirt he dug up on Reardon, his alleged victim. In fact, Sanfilippo has been waiting for someone to call him up and ask for his side of the story.   Reardon hasn't forgotten, either. "I don't need closure," he said, assuring me that his family "laughs about it sometimes." And yet he still finds himself Googling Sanfilippo and his son late at night. Reardon still considers Sanfilippo a "jackass" and "pathetic." His son is a "garbage kid." He still remembers the last time he saw Sanfilippo, in a parking lot outside a baseball field. "Can't you just live your life?" Sanfilippo asked. Reardon scowled. "Not until you're dead."   Jason Bateman's production company, Aggregate, is adapting the story you're about to read into an eight-part limited series for Netflix, directed by and starring Bateman. Read the Full Story I Drank Rare, Unopened Century-Old Whiskeys. Here's How They Tasted. "We're about to drink through all the world wars and the Great Depression," Zev Glesta says, gingerly tugging on a metal tamper proof ring adhering the cap to a bottle of 1932 Old Grand Dad 16-year bourbon. The metal seal is particularly tricky and Glesta, Sotheby's assistant vice president of whiskey for North America, jokes about perhaps needing pliers to wrestle it off. "Who knew they did such a good job at these early seals?" he says, finally freeing the cap.   For the first time in nearly 100 years, this deep-amber bourbon, distilled in 1917, meets air. Next, it meets my lips. Read the Full Story Bono Has Another Story to Tell The last several years have been a time of recovery and reckoning for Bono, who turned sixty-five this spring. He made it past a serious health scare (one that he'd played down in public) and emerged with a more balanced perspective on how to enjoy the everyday pleasures in life. He faced demons from his youth that have fueled him throughout his career. And he reassessed his role in the nonprofit work that has captured so much of his passion and energy over the decades. He's gone deep within himself and come out different. Better.   But as much introspection as Bono may have done here by the Mediterranean, it's not in his nature to sit idle or live in the past. The relentless drive that has propelled the singer and his band for nearly fifty years now is very much still there. And much like in his early years in the South of France, where we are sitting down for this interview, he's feeling newly energized. U2 is in the studio working on songs—perhaps the band's first album of new music in nearly a decade—and his excitement about the material is palpable. Bono, it's clear, has more stories to tell. And he believes the world needs to hear them. "I still think that we can create a soundtrack for people who want to take on the world." Read the Full Story Donald Trump, Mike Tyson, and the Fight That Defined an Era There may have been, in the long and sordid history of boxing, a more perfidious lead‑up to a big fight. But never before—or since, for that matter—had the treacheries been so blatant, been made so public, and been so deeply rooted in the personal life of one fighter. For all the mournful blather wishing for just boxing, it was the treasons themselves that made the fight between Mike Tyson and Michael Spinks on June 27, 1988, the most hotly anticipated fight since Ali–Frazier I. The difference was Ali–Frazier had been an almost even‑money proposition. The odds for Tyson–Spinks, while narrowing, had opened with Tyson a prohibitive 5–1 favorite.   Still, people couldn't get enough. The shit in the champion's life had become addictive, a global jones nourished each morning amid the acrid scent of newspaper ink: his wife, the fetching Robin Givens, and her tennis pro sister, depicting him a violent boozer just a week out from what was being billed as the "Fight of the Century," claiming that Tyson's embattled manager, Bill Cayton, had sicced a squadron of private detectives on her and her mother, trying to engineer her divorce from Mike. Meanwhile, Don King—not merely the world's greatest promoter, but also its most Machiavellian—was scheming to depose Cayton and gain control of the most lucrative prize in sports. It's not difficult to imagine the week in Tyson's life as a B movie, complete with spinning headlines. Read the Full Story Is the Four Seasons Mattress Worth Five Stars? I am a Four Seasons snob. I'm not ashamed to say it and in all fairness (and at the risk of sounding pretentious), Four Seasons properties are practically my second home. My grandmother lived at the Back Bay one in Boston, my parents were married at that one, and our family vacations took us to its properties all over the world—from San Francisco to Nevis to Lisbon—courtesy of my parents' credit card membership rewards points.   So when I tell you the best part of a Four Seasons Hotel is the bed, you should believe me. Plopping onto a Four Seasons bed is truly magical. Yet, underneath the fluffy duvet and atop the cloud-like mattress, I began to wonder: Is it the experience of being in a five-star hotel that makes this bed so wonderful or is it the mattress itself? I decided it was time to put it to the test. Read the Full Story We Finally Found the Right Nickname for Trump! Now Every Day Is TACO Tuesday Listen: Drumpf did not catch on. Don-old felt focus-grouped. When you see someone write tRump on social media, it's like: I guess that's the flip side of the "weird aunt who calls Democrats 'DemonRats' in her Facebook posts" coin, but…God, what a shitty coin. Can't we get a new coin?   This week, we got a new coin. Donald Trump has finally been effectively bullied, and it is something that all good Americans must acknowledge and celebrate. Today may be Friday, but until further notice, thank God it's Taco Tuesday. So here's the deal. A couple of weeks back, Robert Armstrong of the Financial Times wrote about a pattern we've been seeing so far in this administration: Trump announces tariffs, the stock market tanks, Trump backs off of the proposed tariffs, the stock market recovers. Investors have begun to ride this wave: buy on the announcement of the tariffs, certain that the surrender is never far away. Armstrong called this practice the TACO trade—an acronym for Trump Always Chickens Out. Read the Full Story Follow Us Unsubscribe | Privacy Notice | CA Notice at Collection Esquire is a publication of Hearst Magazines. ©2025 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This email was sent by Hearst Magazines, 300 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019-3779