You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time. – Jim Bouton, Ball Four, 1970

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. – A. Bartlett Giamatti, "The Green Fields of the Mind," Yale Alumni Magazi

There are three things in my life which I really love: God, my family, and baseball. The only problem – once baseball season starts, I change the order around a bit. – Al Gallagher, 1971