Quotes from George Vecsey

To this day, while maintaining a healthy respect for the Giants and Jets and other teams I cover, I admit to checking the results every Monday to see how the Bears did.

Some people insist that hallowed professional teams should never change their nicknames.

In recent generations, women's sports have been a blessing. Some of us can remember the bad old days in the '50s, when we would discover in casual schoolyard play that a girl could outrun most of us or hold her own in basketball or hit a softball - but there were no teams, no coaches, for girls.

There is no sports event like Opening Day of baseball, the sense of beating back the forces of darkness and the National Football League.

No matter how many times it happens, the public always seems to be shocked when an athlete dies young, but the reality is, there are no promises.

I proposed abolishing boxing because it was bad for the brain, but boxers were generally so decent that I loved being around the gyms.

FIFA is a vuvuzela. It's in your ear, but you don't want to hear it, and then eventually it goes away.

Ball caps travel far and wide. They do far more than keep the sun out of your eyes or the cold off your head. Ball caps are a statement.

Some of the most inspiring moments in sports have come from players with physical defects. Tom Dempsey, born without toes on his right foot, kicked a 63-yard field goal in 1970, using a straighter, wider shoe.

Pennant races drain the energy from the best of them. Old-fashioned baseball races are to me the most grueling daily test in any sport. Gotta keep coming out, every day, in the face of looming disaster.

Some great players, like Ted Williams and Stan Musial, had one more great hitting season left around the age of 40.

War of attrition, war of wills. That's what the Stanley Cup playoffs are - more intense, more physical and more prolonged than the playoffs of any other sport.

When I was a kid, my father brought home the autobiography of Sid Luckman, the great Chicago Bears quarterback - probably an extra copy from the sports department where he worked. It was the first sports biography I ever read.

In New York, I run into Packers fans who have never lived in Wisconsin, Canadiens fans who have never lived in La Belle Province, Celtics fans who admire Russell and Bird and Pierce but have no trace of a Boston accent.

Many of the most successful coaches and managers have come from players who never reached the highest level. The one exception seems to be basketball, where many of the greatest stars at least tried to coach a team.

Most descriptions make Beijing sound overbuilt: not a blade of grass left.

Under a pulsating full moon, the gussied-up Billie Jean King National Tennis Center seems much softer and prettier at night, with the fountains bubbling and fans without tickets to the big stadium sitting in the plaza and watching a big screen.

Every spring, this happens: People discover hockey when daylight lasts longer and men grow beards and tie games do not end in shootouts but rather continue until a goal is scored. The seventh game only heightens the mood for players and fans alike.

For good reasons, there are no ties during the Stanley Cup season. Somebody needs to win so the lads can get out to their cottages on the lakes, where all hockey players spend their summers, or so I have been told.

Football is a simple game; twenty-two men chase a ball for ninety minutes and at the end, the Germans always win.

In August of 1921, one of the great American combinations was unveiled—even better than the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This fortuitous new blend was radio and baseball.

Asked to discuss the new spheroid endorsed by FIFA, Arena refused to take the issue seriously. "It's a BAWL," he enunciated.

There is always a group of death in any World Cup. And it's a complement in a way to be in a group of death because it means that you're a good team also.

Some anthems are great for sports. You've got the Russian national anthem... 'O Canada,' how wonderful is that for hockey... but I chose the Italian national song because at my first World Cup, I saw the Italians play four times, and they won all four times - they won the championship.