George Mitrovich's Baseball Notes : Redhawk Publications : 9781952485848 : 11 Aug 2022 : From the Author: "It's true, as we are often reminded by cynics of the sport, that baseball is a business - and every day when free agency is rampant and players go to the highest bidder, the business of baseball cannot be denied. But if that's the beginning and the end of one's understanding of the world's greatest game, it reveals an elementary ignorance of something so uniquely American that our national experience cannot be understood independent of it...but what we cherish about the game, its beauty, poetry, and nuances, are, in the end, what separates the business of baseball from the game of baseball. "We may be indifferent to the first reality but we hold to the second as surely as we cling to any fundamental essential in the American character; for it defines us and elevates us to a level higher than what is otherwise the commonplace of our existence." - George Mitrovich, Elysian Fields