To baseball players, our caps are sacred. We integrate our caps into our strange routines and superstitions, removing and replacing them on our heads with ritual precision so they sit just so.
Why are baseball managers the only coaches who dress up like the players?
I love baseball history, and Wrigley Field is as good as it gets when it comes to that.
You know what I love best about baseball? The pine tar, the resin, the grass, the dirt - and that's just in the hot-dogs.
The sport to which I owe so much has undergone profound changes, but it's still baseball. Kids still imitate their heroes on playgrounds. Fans still ruin expensive suits going after foul balls that cost five dollars. Hitting streaks still make the network news and hot dogs still taste better at the ballpark than at home.
Say this for big league baseball - it is beyond any question the greatest conversation piece ever invented in America.
Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.
Baseball is this intense subculture that actually doesn't speak very much for the larger culture.
Baseball is just a game, obviously, but it means a lot to a lot of different people.
You know, baseball's not stupid. Baseball does what the fans want, usually.
Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game - and do it by watching first some high school or small-town teams.
I think that to fully appreciate baseball, it helps to have been born in the U.S.
I grew up in Miami watching baseball down there, so you could see it from one extreme to the next. It was like, 'Well, this is what baseball is about.'
Around New York, I used to hear that expression, 'Once a Dodger, always a Dodger.' But how about, 'Once a Yankee, always a Yankee?' There never was anything better than that. You never get over it.
All ballplayers want to wind up their careers with the Cubs, Giants or Yankees. They just can't help it.
Baseball's Opening Day is full of time-honored traditions: the President throws out the first ball, the Cubs' starting pitcher walks away with a 54.00 ERA, the Royals get mathematically eliminated from the pennant race.
