Curt Flood, of course, was in a class by himself, a true hero.

Other people get into occupations by accident or design; but writers are born. I could work at selling motels, or slopping hogs, for fifty years, but if someone asked my occupation, I'd say writer, even if I'd never sold a word. Writers write. Other people talk.

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

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

The crack of the bat, the sound of baseballs thumping into gloves, the infield chatter are like birdsong to the baseball starved.

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 lost my wife Barbara to cancer few years ago. I would give whatever time I have left to spend one more day with her.