RED SMITH

Dying is no big deal. Living is the trick.

Ninety feet between home plate and first base may be the closest man has ever come to perfection.

Writing is very much like bricklaying. You learn to put one brick on top of another and spread the mortar so thick.

It's no accident that of all the monuments left of the Greco- Roman culture the biggest is the ballpark, the Colosseum, the YankeeStadium of ancient times.

I have known writers who paid no damned attention whatever to the rules of grammar and rhetoric and somehow made the language behave for them.

The natural habitat of the tongue is the left cheek.

In entertainment value, the Democratic clambake usually lays it over the Republican conclave like ice cream over parsnips.

Unlike the normal pattern, I know I have grown more liberal as I've grown older. I have become more convinced that there is room for improvement in the world.

For 350 years we have been taught that reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man and writing an exact man. Football's place is to add a patina of character, a deference to the rules and a respect for authority.

Any sportswriter who thinks the world is no bigger than the outfield fence in not only a bad citizen, but also a lousy sportswriter.

The natural habitat of the tongue is the left cheek.

I like to get where the cabbage is cooking and catch the scents.

It was an ideal day for football - too cold for the spectators and too cold for the players.

It is well known that the older a man grows, the faster he could run as a boy.

My best girl is dead.

Ninety feet between the bases is the nearest thing to perfection that man has yet achieved.

In entertainment value, the Democratic clambake usually lays it over the Republican conclave like ice cream over parsnips.

It's no accident that of all the monuments left of the Greco- Roman culture the biggest is the ballpark, the Colosseum, the YankeeStadium of ancient times.

Young men have visions, old men have dreams.

Dying is no big deal. Living is the trick.

As a ballplayer, (Dizzy) Dean was a natural phenomenon, like the Grand Canyon or the Great Barrier Reef. Nobody ever taught him baseball and he never had to learn. He was just doing what came naturally when a scout named Don Curtis discovered him on a Texas sandlot and gave him his first contract.

I think it's the real world. The people we're writing about in professional sports, they're suffering and living and dying and loving and trying to make their way through life just as the brick layers and politicians are.

Unlike the normal pattern, I know I have grown more liberal as I've grown older. I have become more convinced that there is room for improvement in the world.

Ninety feet between home plate and first base may be the closest man has ever come to perfection.

I have known writers who paid no damned attention whatever to the rules of grammar and rhetoric and somehow made the language behave for them.

In my later years I have sought to become simpler, straighter and purer in my handling of the language. I've had many writing heroes, writers who have influenced me. Of the ones still alive, I can think of E.B. White. I certainly admire the pure, crystal stream of his prose. When I was very young as a sportswriter I knowingly and unashamedly imitated others. I had a series of heroes who would delight me for a while and I'd imitate them--Damon Runyon, Westbrook Pegler, Joe Williams.

Writing is very much like bricklaying. You learn to put one brick on top of another and spread the mortar so thick.

Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention.

Today's game is always different from yesterday's game.

For 350 years we have been taught that reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man and writing an exact man. Football's place is to add a patina of character, a deference to the rules and a respect for authority.

Any sportswriter who thinks the world is no bigger than the outfield fence in not only a bad citizen, but also a lousy sportswriter.

Baseball is a dull game only for those with dull minds.