Democrats, you know, want to identify with and relate to what you're feeling, what you've been bummed out about, where your head is at.

[Television executives] are afraid to advertise condoms that could save lives, but do not blush about telecasting a National Geographic special on President Reagan's pelvic plumbing.

Democrats, you know, want to identify with and relate to what you're feeling, what you've been bummed out about, where your head is at.

The ballpark is the star. In the age of Tris Speaker and Babe Ruth, the era of Jimmie Foxx and Ted Williams, through the empty-seats epoch of Don Buddin and Willie Tasby and unto the decades of Carl Yastrzemski and Jim Rice, the ballpark is the star. A crazy-quilt violation of city planning principles, an irregular pile of architecture, a menace to marketing consultants, Fenway Park works. It works as a symbol of New England's pride, as a repository of evergreen hopes, as a tabernacle of lost innocence. It works as a place to watch baseball.

One cardinal rule of American journalism is that The New York Times Sunday Magazine is a chore, a bore, and a penance to be endured.