Many of the most successful coaches and managers have come from players who never reached the highest level. The one exception seems to be basketball, where many of the greatest stars at least tried to coach a team. – George Vecsey
Every spring, this happens: People discover hockey when daylight lasts longer and men grow beards and tie games do not end in shootouts but rather continue until a goal is scored. The seventh game only heightens the mood for players and fans alike. – George Vecsey
In recent generations, women’s sports have been a blessing. Some of us can remember the bad old days in the ’50s, when we would discover in casual schoolyard play that a girl could outrun most of us or hold her own in basketball or hit a softball – but there were no teams, no coaches, for girls. – George Vecsey
For years, I advised George Steinbrenner to get out of town because he dishonored my hometown with his bullying and bombast. – George Vecsey
Sometimes, sport is just plain pleasing to the eye, like watching La Belle France flit by on television during the Tour de France. I can do that for hours. – George Vecsey
Lance Armstrong has joined the legion of the lost, the great athletes who were barred or exiled for sins admitted or charged or suspected. – George Vecsey
In that prehistoric time, before the Internet, before information floated in the ozone, I was a soccer novice who had never heard of Socrates until somebody pointed him out – swarthy, shaggy, tall, slender, mysterious. – George Vecsey
In the late ’60s, Senator Charles E. Goodell, Republican of New York, spoke out against the Vietnam War, bringing on the wrath of the Nixon administration and, as it turned out, the disaffection of conservative voters. – George Vecsey
Pennant races drain the energy from the best of them. Old-fashioned baseball races are to me the most grueling daily test in any sport. Gotta keep coming out, every day, in the face of looming disaster. – George Vecsey
Three of the brightest baseball pitchers of their times staged comebacks without much success – David Cone, Jim Bouton and Jim Palmer – but there was room to admire their quixotic gesture. – George Vecsey
For years, I have been harboring memories of my first major league game at a place named Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. – George Vecsey
Whether or not anybody had invented the category in his lifetime, Babe Ruth was surely the Greatest Living Yankee almost immediately upon lofting home runs at the Polo Grounds, allowing the Yankees to build their own palace across the Harlem River. – George Vecsey
Baseball’s postseason shifts from game to game because of starting pitchers and the geography of the ballparks. – George Vecsey
When Sweden’s Jan-Ove Waldner travels to China to play table tennis, he is mobbed when he leaves his hotel as if he were a rock star walking around Manhattan or a soccer star walking around Europe. – George Vecsey
Television is making sports universal; for the same reason, big-time soccer is growing more popular in the United States. – George Vecsey
What is there about basketball that makes Larry Bird or Lenny Wilkens want to coach after their playing careers are done? – George Vecsey
Many American players – Paul Caligiuri, Claudio Reyna, Eric Wynalda, Kasey Keller, Tony Sanneh, Michael Bradley and Steve Cherundolo, just a partial list – have sought the income and challenge of Germany. – George Vecsey
I love Boston. I love Fenway Park. I love Red Sox history. But in no way am I a Red Sox fan. – George Vecsey
Into La Bombonera danced the most agile, rhythmic, beautiful, sensuous people I have ever seen. And that was just the fans. – George Vecsey
I never worried about getting stale because the news and the people induce freshness every working hour. – George Vecsey
In North America, many fans know Cristiano Ronaldo’s smirk and can recognize Didier Drogba in a commercial. Maybe they know too much for the good of M.L.S. – George Vecsey
There is always a group of death in any World Cup. And it’s a complement in a way to be in a group of death because it means that you’re a good team also. – George Vecsey
Some anthems are great for sports. You’ve got the Russian national anthem… ‘O Canada,’ how wonderful is that for hockey… but I chose the Italian national song because at my first World Cup, I saw the Italians play four times, and they won all four times – they won the championship. – George Vecsey
I say the Islanders were the best team I ever covered because they had more so many stars who delivered with Canadian-Swedish-suburban modesty. And they won four straight Stanley Cups from 1980 through 1983. – George Vecsey
I’ve seen elbows that broke eye sockets. I’ve seen a German goalkeeper just level a French guy. His teammates thought he was dead lying on the ground. This was in 1982 at my first World Cup. But a bite is outside any kind of contact collision: dirty foul play. A bite is a bite. – George Vecsey