Dan Shaughnessy (Courtesy photo)

As a columnist for the Boston Globe, sportswriter Dan Shaughnessy spends most of his time writing about baseball’s current greats, as well as all the drama that often swirls around America’s favorite pastime. In a departure from his regular beat, however, Shaughnessy has written Senior Year: A Father, a Son, and High School Baseball, a play-by-play chronicle of his son’s last year at Newton North. Tuesday, June 14, Shaughnessy will visit the Harvard Public Library at 7 p.m. to discuss the book, baseball, and his career as a sportswriter.

Part memoir, part autobiography, Senior Year follows Sam Shaughnessy as he makes his way through the college baseball team recruitment process, plays spectacular and spectacularly awful baseball by turns, and offers his parents all the opportunities for hand-wringing an 18-year-old can possibly dream of. Throughout the book, Shaughnessy weaves in memories of his own childhood playing baseball in Groton, thoughtfully comparing the lessons he learned growing up to those he must teach his children today.

Bitten by the baseball bug in 1962, Shaughnessy has long enjoyed a love for the sport and everything about it, from the smallest statistic to the camaraderie of the teams. Playing for Groton High School as an outfielder, he has good memories of playing against the Bromfield boys—and often beating them. Now content to write about the players and support his son in his efforts, Shaughnessy looked at Senior Year as a way to recapture his own memories and to savor a last, special year with his youngest child.

“I really enjoyed that time of life,” he said in a telephone interview Tuesday, June 5. Writing the book, he added, was a way to live the experience in real time, to capture fleeting moments for just a second more. Although many parents wouldn’t love the constant buzz of activity that surrounds a successful high school baseball team, those were some of the best times his life, Shaughnessy said. Reflecting on the fact that Sam has now finished his freshman year at Boston College, he was wistful for just a moment. “Enjoy that time,” he said. “Don’t let it get away from you—it goes by fast.”