“The first day of spring, the vernal equinox—the season of renewal when the earth sheds its winter cloak, flowers bloom, and the heart feels as though everything is once again imaginable. The smell of fresh-cut grass, shagging fly balls, and scraping mud from baseball cleats. A brief contemplation and tear for those gone from the field, their easy laugh and nimble sprint no longer gracing the game.”

“What idiocy, to racing into this story and its labyrinths, sprinting away from our happiness among the fresh spring grasses by the oak.”

“Fresh flowers bloomed from vases, sweetly scenting the air. Again, he had no idea. Fine. He'd requested those. That shit smelled good.”

“We say that flowers return every spring, but that is a lie. It is true that the world is renewed. It is also true that that renewal comes at a price, for even if the flower grows from an ancient vine, the flowers of spring are themselves new to the world, untried and untested. The flower that wilted last year is gone. Petals once fallen are fallen forever. Flowers do not return in the spring, rather they are replaced. It is in this difference between returned and replaced that the price of renewal is paid. And as it is for spring flowers, so it is for us.”

“That moment, when you first lay eyes on that field — The Monster, the triangle, the scoreboard, the light tower Big Mac bashed, the left-field grass where Ted (Williams) once roamed — it all defines to me why baseball is such a magical game”

“Look at the four-spaced yearThat imitates four seasons of our lives;First Spring, that delicate season, bright with flowers,Quickening, yet shy, and like a milk-fed child,Its way unsteady while the countrymanDelights in promise of another year.Green meadows wake to bloom, frail shoots and grasses,And then Spring turns to Summer's hardiness,The boy to manhood. There's no time of yearOf greater richness, warmth, and love of living,New strength untried. And after Summer, Autumn,First flushes gone, the temperate season hereMidway between quick youth and growing age,And grey hair glinting when the head turns toward us, Then senile Winter, bald or with white hair,Terror in palsy as he walks alone.”