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.
From George Vecsey
What is there about basketball that makes Larry Bird or Lenny Wilkens want to coach after their playing careers are done?
Fans all have their memories of pennant races, good memories, sick memories.
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.
For years, I advised George Steinbrenner to get out of town because he dishonored my hometown with his bullying and bombast.
As my wife will attest, I do not shop casually.
I never watch 'Sopranos' reruns back home. As far as I am concerned, the nuclear family is still sitting around the luncheonette in New Jersey, munching and chatting, safe and together, and that's how it ended for me.
Most descriptions make Beijing sound overbuilt: not a blade of grass left.
There is nothing wrong with athletes coming back from retirement.
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.
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