Your perception plays tricks when you are hoping for something.

I like to write with a lot of emotion and a lot of power. Sometimes I overdo it; sometimes my prose is a little bit too purple, and I know that.

One of the exciting things about reporting is going to places you've never been to before.

Why did I become a writer? Because I grew up in New York City, and there were seven newspapers in New York City, and my family was an inveterate reader of newspapers and I loved holding a paper in my hand. It was something sacred.

One of the inspirations for my becoming a writer was the baseball board game Strat-O-Matic.

I worked at my high school newspaper at Andover, which came out weekly, unusual for a high school paper. Then my first day at Penn I went right to the 'Daily Pennsylvanian' and pretty much spent most of my college career working both as the sports editor and then editor of the editorial page.

Because Cards' fans are the most knowledgeable and loyal in all of baseball, they booed almost reluctantly, polite as booing goes, what would have passes as a standing ovation in Philly.