Roger Kahn Quotes & Sayings

Carl Furillo was pure ballplayer. In his prime he stood six feet tall and weighed 190 pounds and there was a fluidity to his frame you seldom see, among such sinews. His black hair was thick, and tightly curled. His face was strong and smooth. He had the look of a young indomitable centurion ... I cannot imagine Carl Furillo in his prime as anything other than a ballplayer. Right field in Brooklyn was his destiny. — Roger Kahn

It is dangerous to spring to obvious conclusions about baseball or, for that matter, ball players. Baseball is not an obvious game. — Roger Kahn

I was showing early symptoms of becoming a professional baseball man. I was lying to the press. — Roger Kahn

You may glory in a team triumphant, but you fall in love with a team in defeat. Losing after great striving is the story of man, who was born to sorrow, whose sweetest songs tell of saddest thought, and who, if he is a hero, does nothing in life as becomingly as leaving it. — Roger Kahn

Worse, Roger erupted into outbursts of uncontrollable rage, without apparent cause. In time I learned that this was one symptom of what therapists formerly described as a manic-depressive personality. Now they call the condition bipolar disorder. Roger sometimes telephoned and began the conversation, "You better listen to me, Dad, or you are one dead man." Then, half an hour later, "Dad, can we go to the Yankee game tonight?" Bipolar disorder is terrifying, perhaps most of all for the person suffering from it. — Roger Kahn

Poor kid, I thought, to do this to yourself at twenty-three and leave a note that tells me you could have been a writer. I would have liked that for you. I would have liked that very much. — Roger Kahn

To age with dignity and with courage cuts close to what it is to be a man. — Roger Kahn

Football is violence and cold weather and college rye. — Roger Kahn

Why do we remember the Boys of Summer? We remember because we were young when they were, of course. But more, we remember because we feel the ache of guilt and regret. While they were running, jumping, leaping, we were slouched behind typewriters, smoking and drinking, pretending to some mystic communion with men we didn't really know or like. Men from ghettos we didn't dare visit, or rural farms we passed at sixty miles an hour. Loving what they did on the field, we could forget how superior we felt towards them the rest of the time. By cheering them on we proved we had nothing to do with the injustices that kept their lives separate from ours. There's nothing sordid or false about the Boys of Summer. Only our memories smell like sweaty jockstraps. — Roger Kahn

Dear Dad: After twenty-two years in the amusement park, this roller coaster isn't fun any more, so I'm getting off the ride. Roger — Roger Kahn

Dempsey himself said you only spend so much time in the spotlight before they change the bulb. He had a very clever way with words. — Roger Kahn

Horse racing is animated roulette. — Roger Kahn

Basketball, hockey and track meets are action heaped upon action, climax upon climax, until the onlooker's responses become deadened. Baseball is for the leisurely afternoons of summer and for the unchanging dreams. — Roger Kahn

Tennis and golf are best played, not watched. — Roger Kahn

Ebbets Field was a narrow cockpit, built of brick and iron and concrete, alongside a steep cobblestone slope of Bedford Avenue. Two tiers of grandstand pressed the playing area from three sides, and in thousands of seats fans could hear a ball player's chatter, notice details of a ball player's gait and, at a time when television had not yet assaulted illusion with the Zoomar lens, you could see, you could actually see, the actual expression on the actual face of an actual major leaguer as he played. You could know what he was like! — Roger Kahn

You need that pride in yourself, as well as a sense, when you are sitting on Page 297 of a book, that the book is going to be read, that somebody is going to care. You can't ever be sure about that, but you need the sense that it's important, that it's not typing; it's writing. — Roger Kahn

Robinson did not merely play at center stage. He was center stage; and wherever he walked, center stage moved with him. — Roger Kahn

Pique or policy. We would never know. — Roger Kahn

No other sporting event can compare with a good Series. The Super Bowl is a three-hour interruption in a week of drink and Rotarian parties. — Roger Kahn

By applauding Robinson, a man did not feel that he was taking a stand on school integration, or on open housing. But for an instant he had accepted Robinson simply as a hometown ball player. To disregard color, even for an instant, is to step away from the old prejudices, the old hatred. That is not a path on which many double back. — Roger Kahn

Baseball writers develop a great attachment for the Brooklyn club if long exposed, — Roger Kahn

Boxing is smoky halls and kidneys battered until they bleed. — Roger Kahn