A biography for George Vecseyhasn’t been written yet.
“Some of us love hockey not just for its ferocity and skill but for its underlying code of civility off the ice.”
“No matter how many times it happens, the public always seems to be shocked when an athlete dies young, but the reality is, there are no promises.”
“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.”
“Baseball's postseason shifts from game to game because of starting pitchers and the geography of the ballparks.”
“Youth sports could not exist without millions of volunteers and modestly paid coaches who teach our children how to skate and catch and dribble and also how to get along with others.”
“Hockey suffers from being compared to itself in ways that other sports are not. Every four years, some of us fawn over Olympic hockey, a great event with bigger rinks, minimal goonishness and national pride in addition to the heightened skills of veritable all-star squads.”
“I love Major League Soccer, covered the first game in 1996 in a funky stadium in San Jose, and I applaud just about every move that its commissioners, Garber and Doug Logan, have made.”
“There may not be much future for the kind of sports column I did.”
“Hundreds of ballplayers have performed well after Tommy John surgery, in which an elbow ligament is replaced by material from elsewhere on the body. More and more, athletes will perform with a bit of this or a bit of that in a joint or muscle.”
“It is no fun lining up in your own building - as the hockey players say - and touching the hands of fellow stubbly louts who have just sent you off to the proverbial cabin on the lake.”
“The Greatest Living Yankee is Whitey Ford, who came out of Aviation High School, which was then in Manhattan, and helped pitch the Yankees to victory in the 1950 World Series when he was 21.”
“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.”
“Sure, there were people from Missouri and Illinois who grew up Cardinals fans and migrated to New York for work or love. Cardinals fans congregate periodically at Foley's near Herald Square to root for the team of their childhood, up there on the TV screen.”
“It is hard to imagine the World Series being held in the sweet hazy sunshine of late September rather than the sour night air of late October, but that is precisely what has transpired in baseball over the past 50 years, a deterioration from light to darkness.”
“When I was a kid, my father brought home the autobiography of Sid Luckman, the great Chicago Bears quarterback - probably an extra copy from the sports department where he worked. It was the first sports biography I ever read.”
“One of the most beautiful sights in my neighborhood is on High Holy Days when people walk to temple. Not only does this bring the traditional legendary weather, but it gives off a psychic signal to slow down.”
“When the Mets were on their run in the 1980s, Gary Carter was often seen hugging somebody. It was easy to joke about that. The best hug of all was with Jesse Orosco at the end of the 1986 World Series.”
“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.”
“What is there about basketball that makes Larry Bird or Lenny Wilkens want to coach after their playing careers are done?”
“The football playoffs feature one-off affairs, without bad feelings building from weekend to weekend. In addition, football uses platoons for offense and defense and kicking, so only the interior linemen have a chance to really get up close and personal with one another.”