"You may glory in a team triumphant, but you fall in love with a team in defeat. Losing after great striving is the st…"

"One did not go to Ebbets Field for sociology. Exciting baseball was the attraction, and a wonder of the sociological …"

"He bore the burden of a pioneer and the weight made him strong. If one can be certain of anything in baseball, it is …"

"Unlike most, a ball player must confront two deaths. First, between the ages of thirty and forty he perishes as an at…"

"One thing a writer has, if he is fortunate, and I have been fortunate, is a partnership with the years."

"Surely these fine athletes, those boys of summer, have found their measure of ruin."

"That morning began with wind and hairy clouds. It was late March and the day rose brisk and uncertain, with gusts sug…"

"It was a time of transition, which few recognized, and glutting national satisfaction. Students and scholars were sil…"

"One can travel for weeks with baseball men and see no books at all."

"In the intimacy of Ebbets Field it was a short trip from the grandstand to the fantasy you were in the game."