In my later years I have sought to become simpler, straighter and purer in my handling of the language. I've had many writing heroes, writers who have influenced me. Of the ones still alive, I can think of E.B. White. I certainly admire the pure, crystal stream of his prose. When I was very young as a sportswriter I knowingly and unashamedly imitated others. I had a series of heroes who would delight me for a while and I'd imitate them--Damon Runyon, Westbrook Pegler, Joe Williams.

It's no accident that of all the monuments left of the Greco- Roman culture the biggest is the ballpark, the Colosseum, the YankeeStadium of ancient times.

Writing is very much like bricklaying. You learn to put one brick on top of another and spread the mortar so thick.

I think it's the real world. The people we're writing about in professional sports, they're suffering and living and dying and loving and trying to make their way through life just as the brick layers and politicians are.

It is well known that the older a man grows, the faster he could run as a boy.

I like to get where the cabbage is cooking and catch the scents.

The Russians have a weapon that can wipe out two hundred eighty thousand Americans. That puts them exactly ten years behind Howard Cosell.