JOE POSNANSKI

There's an old line that goes like this: An optimist is usually happy. And a pessimist is usually right. Maybe so. But which would you rather be, anyway?

When I was a kid growing up in Cleveland, I believed - completely, wholeheartedly, without reservation or pause - that the Cleveland Indians were named to honor a Native American ballplayer named Louis Sockalexis, who played for Cleveland in the late 19th Century.

When you live around a working-class environment, you see what sports means to people. You see that it's the escape over the weekend. you see how they build their lives around it. People sort of want to get away from their lives.

I always say that, to me, it starts with reading. This is something I tell high school kids, college kids, people trying to get into the business, that it's just so much about reading. Read, read, read. So much of everything else falls into place when you just do a ton of reading.

I never argue with people who say baseball is boring, because baseball is boring. And then, suddenly, it isn't. And that's what makes it great.

Every day I make predictions that don't come anywhere close to the mark.

The fun of the Super Bowl is the week leading into it; once it's actually played, the story dies down very, very quickly.

How good is Missouri quarterback Chase Daniel anyway? ... to me, Daniel's brilliance has nothing to do with the big numbers he puts up more or less every week. Howie Long once gave a great explanation of what it was like to get beat by quarterback legend Joe Montana. He said it was like getting knocked out in a pillow fight. You never felt the blow. And you were all kinds of mad afterward. That's as good as any description of Daniel. ... So what does Daniel do? Something right. On every play. In chess, grandmasters will tell you that it's the most innocuous-looking moves that are deadliest.

Every time you write anything, at least half your readers are going to disagree with you. A big part of sports writing is how you respond to that tension.

Joe Paterno was a well-educated man, and he was also a man from a different time.

Every day I make predictions that don't come anywhere close to the mark.

Being wrong on facts, that's something you have a real responsibility to correct. But being wrong in the fun sports way is part of the interplay.

When I was a kid growing up in Cleveland, I believed - completely, wholeheartedly, without reservation or pause - that the Cleveland Indians were named to honor a Native American ballplayer named Louis Sockalexis, who played for Cleveland in the late 19th Century.

The fun of the Super Bowl is the week leading into it; once it's actually played, the story dies down very, very quickly.

Every time you write anything, at least half your readers are going to disagree with you. A big part of sports writing is how you respond to that tension.

Joe Paterno was a well-educated man, and he was also a man from a different time.

I never argue with people who say baseball is boring, because baseball is boring. And then, suddenly, it isn't. And that's what makes it great.

I always say that, to me, it starts with reading. This is something I tell high school kids, college kids, people trying to get into the business, that it's just so much about reading. Read, read, read. So much of everything else falls into place when you just do a ton of reading.

There's an old line that goes like this: An optimist is usually happy. And a pessimist is usually right. Maybe so. But which would you rather be, anyway?

How good is Missouri quarterback Chase Daniel anyway? ... to me, Daniel's brilliance has nothing to do with the big numbers he puts up more or less every week. Howie Long once gave a great explanation of what it was like to get beat by quarterback legend Joe Montana. He said it was like getting knocked out in a pillow fight. You never felt the blow. And you were all kinds of mad afterward. That's as good as any description of Daniel. ... So what does Daniel do? Something right. On every play. In chess, grandmasters will tell you that it's the most innocuous-looking moves that are deadliest.

When you live around a working-class environment, you see what sports means to people. You see that it's the escape over the weekend. you see how they build their lives around it. People sort of want to get away from their lives.