Correct thinkers think that 'baseball trivia' is an oxymoron: nothing about baseball is trivial.

All I remember about my wedding day in 1967 is that the Cubs lost a double-header.

All children find chaos congenial. Any unruliness, even by nature, advances the child's program of subverting authority.

Part of the beauty and much of the moral seriousness of sport derives from the severe justice of strenuous play in a circumscribed universe of rules that protect the integrity of competition. Records are worth recording, and worth striving to surpass, because they serve as benchmarks of excellence achieved under the pressure of competition.

Conservatives believe government's principal functions are the preservation of freedom and removal of restraints on the individual. Liberalism's ascent in the first two-thirds of this century reflected the new belief that government should also confer capacities on individuals. Liberalism's decline in the final third of this century has reflected doubts about whether government can be good at that, or whether government that is good at that is good for the nation's character.

The greatest threat to civility - and ultimately civilization - is an excess of certitude. The world is much menaced just now by people who think that the world and their duties in it are clear and simple. They are certain that they know what - who - created the universe and what this creator wants them to do to make our little speck in the universe perfect, even if extreme measures - even violence - are required.

Stalin's henchman Molotov, 96, died old and in bed, a privilege he helped to deny to millions.