Dempsey himself said you only spend so much time in the spotlight before they change the bulb. He had a very clever way with words.

Boxing is smoky halls and kidneys battered until they bleed.

Baseball is for the leisurely afternoons of summer and for the unchanging dreams.

You need that pride in yourself, as well as a sense, when you are sitting on Page 297 of a book, that the book is going to be read, that somebody is going to care. You can't ever be sure about that, but you need the sense that it's important, that it's not typing; it's writing.

Tennis and golf are best played, not watched.

No other sporting event can compare with a good Series. The Super Bowl is a three-hour interruption in a week of drink and Rotarian parties.

Football is violence and cold weather and sex and college rye.