Baseball is the most perfect of games, solid, true, pure and precious as diamonds. If only life were so simple. Within the baselines anything can happen. Tides can reverse; oceans can open. That's why they say, "the game is never over until the last man is out." Colors can change, lives can alter, anything is possible in this gentle, flawless, loving game.

[I] Played a little softball, but there was nowhere on the field it was safe for me to be.

Someone once described the pitching of a no-hit game as like catching lighting in a bottle.

Yogi Berra, Bill Lee, they were irreverent, poked fun at the stodgy owners and managers.

If you build it, he will come.

It is the same game that Moonlight Graham played in 1905. It is a living part of history, like calico dresses, stone crockery, and threshing crews eating at outdoor tables. It continually reminds us of what was, like an Indian-head penny in a handful of new coins.

It is hard to compare the eras, but Joe Jackson and Ty Cobb from the past, Sandy Koufax and Roger Clements from the present.