Saturday, July 15, 2006

Quote from Sanibel Flats

Came across this piece in my recent reading:

"I'm surprised a Zen Buddhist could get upset about a game."
"The Buddha would have been a baseball fan, believe me."
"Ah"
"Baseball is more than a game man. It's a ceremony."
"Oh."
"All of the people who have ever played baseball are linked by virtue of having dealt with predictable game situations in unpredictable ways, each person trying to resolve random events within an orderly sphere of balls, strikes, and outs - "
"Boy oh boy."
"Plus there is the scorebook: a historical document more accurate and succinct than, say, the Old Testament. All these thousands and thousands of scorebooks all over the world forming an unbroken ceremonial chronicle far more detailed than, say, Ireland's Book of Kells - "
"Tomlinson, all we want to do is finish the damn game without offending Rivera. He's a baseball fanatic. He takes it very seriously."
"Well I'll try .. but I'll feel like a heretic."


- From the novel Sanibel Flats by Randy Wayne White

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Field of Dreams quote

Yeah, one of the best speeches about baseball:

"Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come."
- Terence Mann (James Earl Jones)

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Bull Durham Quote

Damn the movie is full of them, but we will start with the obvious one:

"Well, I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days."
- Crash Davis (Kevin Costner)

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Tony Larussa quote

"The game is better than all of us."
- Tony Larussa

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