“Baseball happens to be a game of cumulative tension but football, basketball and hockey are played with hand grenades and machine guns. ”

“Baseball, football, basketball - these quintessentially American pastimes are recognizably sports because they involve play: they are games. One plays football, one doesn't play boxing...The boxing match is the very image, the more terrifying for being so stylized, of mankind's collective aggression; its ongoing historical madness.”

“The tank, the submarine, the torpedo, the machine-gun, even the rifle and the hand grenade are still in use.”

“Bombardment, barrage, curtain-fire, mines, gas, tanks, machine-guns, hand-grenades - words, words, but they hold the horror of the world.”

“Baseball, in its quiet way, was an extravagantly harrowing game. Football, basketball, hockey, lacrosse--these were melee sports. You could make yourself useful by hustling and scrapping more than the other guy. You could redeem yourself through sheer desire.But baseball was different. Schwartz thought of it as Homeric--not a scrum but a series of isolated contests. Batter versus picture, field verses ball. You couldn't storm around, snorting and slapping people, the way Schwartz did while playing football. You stood and waited and tried to still your mind. When your moment came, you had to be ready, because if you fucked up, everyone would know whose fault it was. What other sport not only kept a stat as cruel as the error but posted it on the scoreboard for everyone to see?”

“(Hockey) It's a slippery game played on ice.”