It says, I think, that at root that we're children, or we'd like to be. And the best of us each keep as much of that childhood with us as we grow into adulthood, as we can muster... And even after we're past the point of being able to play the game with any skill, if we love it, then it's like Peter Pan - we remain boys forever, we don't die.

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

The caliber of play suffered and attendance declined year by year. Interest in college football was exploding, and there was this new game called basketball.

We play because we are wired for joy; it is imperative as human beings.

My egotistical concern was less that I would fail to relate to my classmates than that they would know nothing of my uniquely tortured life's course and, thus, me.

I am opposed, naturally, to regurgitating anecdote or any other form of received wisdom, unless it is characterized as such.

But baseball bounced back in the next decade to reclaim its place as the national pastime: new heroes, spirited competition, and booming prosperity gave birth to dreams of expansion, both within the major leagues and around the world.