Steve Rushin

“I'm a recovering jersey wearer who can't bear to get rid of the blaze-orange Knicks warmup top that makes me look like James Carville on a highway repair crew.”

“At its root, 'quit' means 'to set free' - think of an acquittal in a court of law - and to quit is often to be liberated.”

“The most enduring Top 10 ever written wasn't written at all, but chiseled onto stone tablets and conveyed down Mount Sinai by Moses, who introduced to the world not just a set of Biblical precepts but also a new format for starting arguments: the list of 10 things.”

“Cinderella is older than she lets on. She's ancient. She's had work done. The Disney film was based on Charles Perreault's French story 'Cendrillon,' published in 1697.”

“We can project just about anything we want onto NFL owners - one of them is named Arthur Blank, for heaven's sake. He's a walking Mad Lib, just waiting for us to complete him.”

“When people ask if Marquette University is in Michigan, and I tell them my alma mater is in Milwaukee, they sometimes say, 'What's the difference?'”

“'Uff da,' for the unenlightened, is Norwegian for 'oy vey' and is a common expression in Minnesotese.”

“It's one thing to wear jerseys at games, which fans have been doing in great numbers for 30 years, dressing as if they might be summoned from the stands on a moment's notice to pinch-run. But those same jerseys are now omnipresent on airplanes, in restaurants, in doctor's waiting rooms.”

“I'd watch the news with my dad, and he'd quietly mock the anchors. An anchorman might say, 'Police are searching for...' and my dad would say in the anchorman's voice, 'the man who gave me this haircut.' This was in the real Ron Burgundy '70s. And I would laugh and start doing it myself.”

“Compassion and empathy are anathema to sports.”

“I had started writing for 'Sports Illustrated,' which was really my dream job growing up. But the writing probably read like I was auditioning to write for 'Letterman' or '70s-era Carson.”

“Because I'm a bald, dim-witted writer, people think I couldn't possibly be her husband, so they occasionally confuse me for someone more glamorous. At O'Hare airport, a man asked if he could take Rebecca's photo. When I reflexively stepped away, he said, 'No, no, no. I want your picture too, Andre Agassi.'”

“A great presidential address - Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Truman's Farewell Address, Kennedy's Inaugural Address - has the power to inspire.”

“Growing up in Bloomington, Minn., I loved the ritual of dressing for Little League - in white socks, blue stirrups, belted pants, a double-knit jersey, and the cap I'd hold over my face to screen out mosquitoes in right field.”

“If you've never quit anything, you really ought to try. And if at first you don't succeed, try again.”

“Broadcasters calling a big game are often reminded to let the action breathe. A great moment of a televised game doesn't need any narration, which is why the announcers - the good ones, anyway - shut up at the celebration and let the pictures do the talking.”

“Scarcity drives up demand, and the short golf season in Minnesota makes residents of that state mad for the sport. It's the same reason ancient Scandinavians worshiped the sun: because they saw so little of it.”

“On its surface, the HBO documentary series 'Hard Knocks,' about the New York Jets' training camp, resembles another HBO series, 'The Sopranos.' Both star the stout patriarch of a New Jersey 'family' preoccupied with food, intimidation, and florid profanity.”

“Sam Snead had perhaps the most stylish solution to the balding golfer: A snappy fedora that became his signature style, so much so that many never knew he was tonsorially bereft.”

“For most of the twentieth century, a Minnesotan abroad could fix his home state in the cosmos by invoking for his hosts the name Charles Lindbergh or Bob Dylan, native sons who were claimed by the world and never really returned to the Gopher State.”