Talkin' baseball, watchin' snow fall (UPDATED)

"Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona." – George Will.

Since I'm not enjoying a fried shrimp po' boy at the Hogfish Bar and Grill – where it's just a tad warmer than it is here, and since Monday is Opening Day, and since Baseball is America's pastime, and since I'm under the proverbial weather with a case of Spring Fever or the Blue Flu or Who Hit John, let's talk baseball.

Since it is March.

Besides, what else is there to talk about in sports right now? What's that? March Madness?

Well, yes, there's March Madness, perhaps the most glorious of seasons for sports fans and the owners of sports bars. Thus far, the 2013 edition of NCAA's March Madness has been one of the best, too. (Just ask me about the HCP brackets. Please!)

This past weekend brought yet another exciting win for the fun-loving 15th-seeded Florida Gulf Coast University Eagles and the good people of Lee County, Fla. The TV camera operators seemed almost as intrigued with the coach's supermodel wife as with the up-tempo FGCU style of play. It's all good.

This past weekend also brought two thrilling, last-second, game-winning 3-pointers from Big Ten guards Aaron Craft and Victor Oladipo for Ohio State and Indiana, respectively.

However, we are talking baseball on this fine spring day (with snow-covered infields across southern Ohio ballfields.)

On Monday, April 1, the Cincinnati Reds will host the Los Angeles Angels, as the two teams become the first to start their seasons with an inter-league game.

The Reds, of course, are baseball's first professional team. I tried out for the 1869 squad but was cut.

Traditionally, the Reds open the season at home. In fact, the last time the Reds opened on the road was in 1990 at Houston. That turned out to be the famous wire-to-wire championship season.

Reds fans have similarly high aspirations for the 2013 team. Hope springs eternal, of course.

Since the 2013 Major League Baseball season is just a few days away and since I am too ill and too "simple-minded" (thank you, Alert HCP Reader!) to offer anything of real literary value this week, I thought I'd share with my fellow baseball aficionados a few of my favorite quotes from baseball players past and present.

And we'll wrap up this week's offering with a second printing of my all-time Major League Baseball team (with some help from my son).

Without further ado, let the quotations begin:

• "I can remember a reporter asking me for a quote, and I didn't know what a quote was. I thought it was some kind of soft drink." – Joe DiMaggio

• "Let's play two." – Ernie Banks

• "I never want to quit playing ball. They’ll have to cut this uniform off of me to get me out of it." – Roy Campanella.

• "All you have to do is pick up a baseball. It begs to you: Throw me. A baseball was made to throw. It's almost irresistible." – Dave Dravecky.

• "Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter." – Satchel Paige (1).

• "We don't stop playing because we get old. We get old because we stop playing." – Satchel Paige (2).

• "One morning this sergeant came up to me and said, 'Why don't you volunteer for the Raider battalion?' I said OK. But the first thing they told me was, 'You've got to swim a mile with a full pack on your back.' I said, 'Hell, I can't even swim,' and they turned me down. I told the sergeant what happened. He said, 'You gutless SOB, go back down there.' Next day I told them I knew how to swim. They took me." – Hank Bauer, former Yankees player and manager and decorated World War II Marine and one of my dad's favorite Yanks.

(After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hank Bauer enlisted in the Marines. He earned 11 campaign ribbons, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts in 32 months of combat. Bauer was wounded his second time during the Battle of Okinawa, when he was a lieutenant in command of a platoon of 64 Marines. Only six of the 64 Marines survived the Japanese counterattack.)

• "I've played a couple of hundred games of tic-tac-toe with my little daughter and she hasn't beaten me. I've always had to win. I've got to win." – Bob Gibson (1).

• "When I gave up a grand slam to Peter LaCock, I knew it was time to quit." – Bob Gibson (2).

• "Bob Gibson is the luckiest pitcher I ever saw. He always pitches when the other team doesn't score any runs." – Tim McCarver.

• "The manager of a team is like a stagecoach, he can't move unless he has the horses." – Pete Rose (the manager).

• "Playing baseball for a living is like having a license to steal." – Pete Rose (the player).

• "If Satchel Paige and I were pitching on the same team, we would clinch the pennant by July Fourth and go fishing until World Series time." – Dizzy Dean (1).

• "It ain't braggin' if you can back it up." – Dizzy Dean (2).

• "I led the league in 'Go get 'em next time.'" – Bob Uecker (1).

• "I made a major contribution to the Cardinals' pennant drive in 1964. I got hepatitis." – Bob Uecker (2).

• "I told Skip I wasn't tired. He told me, 'No, but the outfielders sure are.'" – Jim Kern.

• "The sun don't shine on the same dog's ass every day." – Jim 'Catfish' Hunter.

• "You kind of get tired of giving the other team credit. At some point, you've got to look in the mirror and say, 'I sucked.'" – Alex Rodriguez.

• "Close don't count in baseball. Close only counts in horseshoes and grenades." – Frank Robinson.

• "People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." – Rogers Hornsby (1).

• "I don't want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it." – Rogers Hornsby (2).

• "If a tie is like kissing your sister, losing is like kissing your grandmother with her teeth out." – George Brett.

• "Some days you tame the tiger, and some days the tiger has you for lunch." – Tug McGraw.

• "Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?" – Jim Bouton.

• "When people say nice things you take them as compliments and it's nice, but it won't help you win your next game. The thing I am trying to keep in mind is that relying on my past performance will not make me win my next game, it'll only get in my way." – Greg Maddux.

• "A man has to have goals – for a day, for a lifetime – and that was mine, to have people say, 'There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived.'" – Ted Williams.

• "The first principle of contract negotiations is don't remind them of what you did in the past. Tell them what you're going to do in the future." – Stan Musial.

• "If the Expos come up with an offer I can't refuse, I wouldn't turn it down." – Gary Carter.

• "I am convinced that God wanted me to be a baseball player. I was born to play baseball." – Roberto Clemente.

• "I try to spend as much time as possible with God and my family. That's more important than anything I'm doing in baseball." – Albert Pujols.

• "Baseball is like church. Many attend but few understand." – Leo Durocher.

* * *

In closing, and as promised, here is the all-time best 18-player roster (we didn't need to consider a 25-man roster), as determined by RR and Son. If you want to submit a better team, that's fine. But there's one rule: These are our players. You must come up with different players for your team.

Based on overall offensive and defensive abilities, combining speed and power, the best MLB lineup is as follows:

D. Jeter – 2B
A. Rodriguez – SS
T. Williams – DH
B. Ruth – 1B
H. Aaron – LF
W. Mays – CF
M. Mantle – RF
M. Schmidt – 3B
J. Bench – C

Pitchers: W. Ford, S. Koufax, N. Ryan, B. Gibson.

Utility Players: P. Rose; A. Pujols; R. Clemente; J. Robinson; Y. Berra.

Let's play two.

Rory Ryan is publisher of The Highland County Press.