Grai Joseph

“Putting Henry at shortstop - it was like taking a painting that had been shoved in a closet and hanging it in the ideal spot. You instantly forgot what the room had looked like before.”
― Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding

“She turned to the sunlight
    And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbor:
    "Winter is dead.”
― A.A. Milne, When We Were Very Young

“Owen," Henry said excitedly, "I think Coach wants you to hit for Meccini."

Owen closed The Voyage of the Beagle, on which he had recently embarked. "Really?"

"Runners on first and second," Rick said. "I bet he wants you to bunt."

"What's the bunt sign?"

"Two tugs on the left earlobe," Henry told him. "But first he has to give the indicator, which is squeeze the belt. But if he goes to his cap with either hand or says your first name, that's the wipe-off, and then you have to wait and see whether--"

"Forget it," Owen said. "I'll just bunt.”
― Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding

“DiMaggio's grace came to represent more than athletic skill in those years. To the men who wrote about the game, it was a talisman, a touchstone, a symbol of the limitless potential of the human individual. That an Italian immigrant, a fisherman's son, could catch fly balls the way Keats wrote poetry or Beethoven wrote sonatas was more than just a popular marvel. It was proof positive that democracy was real. On the baseball diamond, if nowhere else, America was truly a classless society. DiMaggio's grace embodied the democracy of our dreams.”
― David Halberstam, Summer of '49