He’d never been able to talk to anyone, not really. Words were a problem, the problem. Words were tainted somehow…
Only on the field had he ever been able to express himself. Off the field there was no other way than with words, unless you were some kind of artist or musician or mime…
Talking was like throwing a baseball. You couldn’t plan it out beforehand. You just had to let go and see what happened. You had to throw out words without knowing if anyone would catch them… It felt better to talk with a ball in your hand, it felt better to let the ball do the talking. But the world, the non-baseball world, the world of love and sex and jobs and friends was made of words.
— Chad Harbach, from The Art of Fielding
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