If I haven't made myself clear, this worrisome chain of events describes the game of the nineteenth century.

Just because I am increasingly bored by sabermetric arcana doesn't mean anyone else has to be; it remains good for people who like that sort of thing.

I'd just like to see - in writing about baseball - more energy and better craft, minus statistical bludgeoning and invective.

Life is more about losing than winning.

In response to the challenge of strangers, sport arose as a sublimated representation of a community's armed might as well as its pride of place and clan.

As the game enters its glorious final weeks, the chill of fall signals the reality of defeat for all but one team. The fields of play will turn brown and harden, the snow will fall, but in the heart of the fan sprouts a sprig of green.

Baseball presents a living heritage, a game poised between the powerful undertow of seasons past and the hope of next day, next week, next year.