Whatever else I do before finally I go to my grave, I hope it will not be looking after young people.

Award trophies, as opposed to letting the players define and claim their own. Ultimately, pay them to play so that their activity not only resembles work but is work.

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.

Except in expert hands, stats can get in the way of story; an array of data that might better be presented in a table instead clogs up sentences.

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

We know these men are professionals whose services are up for bid and whose bags are packed, and yet we call them our own and take personal, even civic pride in their accomplishments.

The heroes of our youth grow old - 'the boys of summer in their ruin,' in Dylan Thomas's verse - yet we seem the same.