Winning has a joy and discrete purity to it that cannot be replaced by anything else. Winning is important to any man's or woman's sense of satisfaction and well-being. Winning is not everything; but it is something powerful, indeed beautiful, in itself, something as necessary to the strong spirit as striving is necessary to the healthy character.

For me, baseball is the most nourishing game outside of literature. They both are re-tellings of human experience.

Talking to Yogi Berra about baseball is like talking to Homer about the Gods.

Some of my academic friends think Ive fallen from a very special grace.

There are many who lust for the simple answers of doctrine or decree. They are on the left and right. They are not confined to a single part of the society. They are terrorists of the mind.

No one man is superior to the game.

I'm not going to sit here now and say 'do this,' or 'do that.' But you must - must - expunge any vestige of racism.