The pitching coach was bugged by the author's technique because he had never seen anyone do it before, and besides, it wasn't the coach's idea.

I think I should be allowed to be only fair, or even mediocre, for a while.

The author says his young son, adopted from South Korea, occasionally burps and says thank you but otherwise is doing all right.

The author emphasizes the importance of self-forgetfulness when his statistics were marred by a bad outing. He forgot all of that outing to such an extent that he quipped, "What was my name?

Front offices are more interested in players that are far than players that are near.

The older they get, the better they get when they were younger

High school games would just as big a deal to me as any major league game.

Faith is the most unexercised muscle known to man.

Josh and I started out so easy, so fun, and now we're like strangers. I'll never have that person back, who I knew better than anyone and who knew me so well.

So he'll keep dragging himself up this bridge between possible worlds, this rickety ruin of light, trying to imagine it might matter if he makes it to the other side.

Man is the only predator who hunts his own.

She had never imagined that the kiss would be so brief and desperate and wild. Or that it would taste of holy water. Holy water and blood.

Artists are notoriously snooty and suspicious of anything coming from the business community.

Very few people really see things unless they've had someone in early life who made them look at things. And name them too. But the looking is primary, the focus.

The most amazing thing I've ever seen was Jay Johnstone, in uniform, in line at a concession stand in Dodger Stadium after the game had already started.

There is nothing that dulls a personality so much as a negative outlook.

History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.