Baseball means what those of us who hold it in our hearts need it to mean. It can be a pastime, or it can be something by which we measure the seasons of our lives, or it can be something that serves metaphorically for the battles, the triumphs, and the tragedies of any form of human content. I prefer it to be a game—and I think, more than anything else, it tells me that there’s something in the world that I can count on—and it’s never going to let me down. If there is a magic in baseball, I’m sure that’s what it is.

Ken Burns, from Baseball