More than any other American sport, baseball creates the magnetic, addictive illusion that it can almost be understood.

An almost inexorable baseball law: A Red Sox ship with a single leak will always find a way to sink No team is worshipped with such a perverse sense of fatality.

When life is suddenly more serious more of the time, there is also more need for it to be fun at least some of the time. That's why my family will be at a college football game this weekend. We need it. And deserve it, too. Not like a New York fireman deserves it. Or a medic at the Pentagon. But enough.

A good umpire, like a good FBI agent, is never noticed if he is doing his job.

Baseball is not necessarily an obsessive-compulsive disorder, like washing your hands 100 times a day, but it's beginning to seem that way. We're reaching the point where you can be a truly dedicated, state-of-the-art fan or you can have a life. Take your pick.

When you fall in love with golf, you seldom fall easy. Itʹs obsession at first sight.

Baseball is really two sports -- the summer game and the autumn game. One is the leisurely pastime of our national mythology. The other is not so gentle.