38 Quotes by Jane Leavy

In 1927, my father descended the heights and took his place as the newly appointed water boy for his beloved New York football Giants.

Claire Hodgson, born Clara Mae Merritt, was the daughter of a prominent Georgia attorney who had once represented Ty Cobb. She was still a teenager when she married Frank Hodgson, a gentleman caller nearly twice her age.

Cape Cod baseball dates back to the time of the Civil War. A poster at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown touts a round-trip train ride from Hyannis to Sandwich on July 4, 1885 - the occasion of the 14th annual baseball game between Sandwich and Barnstable.

By the time I joined the 'Washington Post' sports staff in 1979, Red's Runyonesque notion of sports writing was obsolete.

By the 1880s, baseball was entrenched in the Cape's sandy soil. Semipro teams, commonplace before World War I, were organized into the first Cape Cod League in 1923 - Orleans joined the four original teams five years later. By 1940, the league had foundered on financial shoals and disbanded.

He really loved baseball and loved being on the field. But Mantle was lonely in a lot of ways. He had many great friends, and by all accounts was a good, generous and loyal friend. But there were a lot of people who wanted only a piece of him.

Asked once what he was doing to keep busy in retirement, Hank Aaron replied, “I’m being Hank Aaron.

You pitch outside, you throw inside,” he liked to say.

In the immortal words of Willie Stargell, trying to hit Koufax was like “trying to drink coffee with a fork.