Larry Colton’s Ordinary Joes are just like us, yet they endure what we could never imagine, and are ennobled in ways they themselves might not claim. Intimate and epic, unblinking and even-handed, Colton’s engrossing story strips sentimentality and cliché from our notion of hero.

I believe in the Church of Baseball. I tried all the major religions and most of the minor ones. I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I learned that, I gave Jesus a chance.

I like to see something like this in my neighborhood . . . to see that they haven't forgotten about the black community,

Any day you can get released. It's the best years of your life, and everybody's playing with this reckless abandon and terror.

You don't know how it's impacting these kids. It might be making some of them want to do something with their lives,

We've got a lot of those coming online. We're kind of behind the curve on that.

We project it to go to 60 to 70 million board feet by '07.

I was about five years behind him in the Baltimore Orioles' organization, ... Everyone told Dalkowski stories.

Joe's assignment was to keep an eye on him and be a role model, ... Joe never saw him, except at the ballpark. The idea of a wild, young pitcher who's out of control rooming with a veteran gave me the dramatic possiblity.

He literally was demon possessed with the bottle, ... In that regard, he's not like 'Nuke' LaLoosh.