As a pastoral game, baseball attempts to close the gap between the players and the crowd. It creates the illusion, for instance, t...hat with a lot a hard work, a little luck, and possibly some extra talent, the average spectator might well be playing; not watching. For most of us can do a few of the things that ball players can do: catch a pop-up, field a ground ball, and maybe get a hit once in a while.... As a heroic game, football is not concerned with a shared community of near-equals. It seeks almost the opposite relationship between its spectators and players, one which stresses the distance between them. We are not allowed to identify directly with Jim Brown any more than we are with Zeus, because to do so would undercut his stature as something more than human.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Standing on the bare ground,--my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,--all mean egotism vanishes. I be...come a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part and particle of God.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As usual with me I had some narrow escapes. While galloping rapidly, my fine large black horse was killed instantly, tumbling heel...s over head and dashing me on the ground violently.... I was also hit fairly in the head by a ball which had lost its force in getting (I suppose) through somebody else!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The professional celebrity, male and female, is the crowning result of the star system of a society that makes a fetish of competi...tion. In America, this system is carried to the point where a man who can knock a small white ball into a series of holes in the ground with more efficiency than anyone else thereby gains social access to the President of the United States.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have heard many years of telling, And many years should see some change.... The ball I threw while playing in the park Has not yet reached the ground.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To stand on common ground here and there gritty with pebbles... yet elsewhere 'fine and mellow-- uncommon fine for ploughing' there to labor planting the vegetable wordsLESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »