I see great things in baseball. It's our game--the American game. It will take our people out of doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger, physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us.

---Walt Whitman (1819-1892) Poet

The pitcher is happiest with his arm idle. He prefers to dawdle in the present, knowing that as soon as he gets on the mound and starts his windup, he delivers himself to the uncertainty of the future.

---George Plimpton, Out of My League (1961)