Quotes from Joe Posnanski

In our beautiful memory We were all handsome. We all could sing. We all had the heart Of the prettiest girl in town. And we all hit .300.

Son, in this life, you don't ever walk by a red dress.

I learned how to play the game from Buck O'Neil," Banks would say. Buck said no, Ernie Banks knew how to play, but what he did learn was how to play the game with love.

Baseball in the Negro Leagues was a little bit rougher, a little bit sweeter, a little bit faster, a little bit cooler, and a little bit more fun than anything... in Major League baseball.

When it comes to golf, Scottish people are famously reserved, undemonstrative, difficult to impress. Golf is like church in Scotland, church like golf.

But Jackie Robinson was a man of faith. I do not just mean faith in God, though he was indeed a religious man. He also had extraordinary faith in himself and his destiny. He believed deeply that he was the one meant to cross baseball's color line. He believed deeply that God would not have led him down this path only to fail. That faith filled him with something more powerful that confidence. He knew that we would succeed because to do anything less would be unthinkable.

Joe Paterno would end every game by gathering the players and reciting the Lord's Prayer. He loved it—not so much for religious reasons but for the words. Look. The Lord's Prayer uses the words "us" and "we" and "our." It doesn't use the word "I" or "me" or "mine." Paterno understood. It's a team prayer.

he winked at his manager and laughed as if the sun had come out from behind the clouds.

No, the Dodgers took Piazza in the 62nd round as a personal favor to help him find a Division I college baseball program. See, out of high school, Piazza (with the help of Lasorda) signed with the University of Miami, but he was entirely overmatched there. He got nine plate appearances and one hit. Seeing his future, he quit school.

Fathers and sons… it's a complicated business, a swirl of love and longing and friction and admiration and regret.

And that's when manager Eddie Sawyer called for Roberts to pitch relief and the Dodgers' manager Charlie Dressen called in Don Newcombe to match up. Talk about a different time: Roberts and Newcombe had pitched the day before. They were on zero days rest

Golfers, even the best golfers, tend to think simple thoughts. It is a misconception many of us have about successful people, in all fields, from the best writers to surgeons to physicists, that they are lost in complications, pondering thoughts that would stagger our minds. At times, that's probably true, but much of what successful people think about is relentlessly simple, building blocks that lead to the complex things.

Perhaps more than any other sport, golf focuses pressure on the player. There are no time constraints, as there are in other sports. Your competitors are not allowed to hinder you, as they are in other sports. The pressure originates in yourself; it builds from doubts. A two-foot putt on the practice green doesn't spark many doubts. A two-foot putt to win a bet or a tournament or a Masters is another thing entirely.

classic bit of understated Paterno

But visualization is one thing. Being brutally honest means expecting bad shots. Because the reality is you will hit a lot of bad shots. The secret is to move on from those bad shots, and the way to do that is to be ready for them.

Pujols was a 13th-round selection by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1999 draft. Thirteenth-round draft picks rarely make it—I do not say this lightly. Since the first year of the draft, only 13 percent of all 13th-round picks have made it to the big leagues at all, and less than 8 percent have posted even one win above replacement.

Joe Paterno was a well-educated man, and he was also a man from a different time.