People Will Say I'm An Idealist. I

Baseball Has The Largest Library Of Law And Love And Custom And Ritual, And Therefore, In A Nation That Fundamentally Believes It Is A Nation Under Law, Well, Baseball Is America's Most Privileged Version Of The Level Field.

I'm The World's Expert On Sterotypes Held By Academics About Athletes And Held By Athletes About Academics. To Me, Both Of Them Are Caricatures.

To Go From Yale To The National League Is Simply To Go From One Form Of Management To Another.

Baseball Is About Homecoming. It Is A Journey By Theft And Strength, Guile And Speed, Out Around First To The Far Island Of Second, Where Foes Lurk In The Reefs And The Green Sea Suddenly Grows Deeper, Then To Turn Sharply, Skimming The Shallows, Making For A Shore That Will Show A Friendly Face, A Color, A Familiar Language And, At Third, To Proceed, No Longer By Paths Indirect But Straight, To Home.

You Count On It, You Rely On It To Buffer The Passage Of Time, To Keep The Memory Of Sunshine And High Skies Alive, And Then, Just When The Days Are All Twilight, When You Need It Most, It Stops.