The Greater Game

Guest Post from Dennis Cole

February 22, 2026

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In the 1980s, I wrote a column called Sports Page. It was for the Woodstock

Townsman in Woodstock, New York. We were editors for the back page.

My wife, Wendy, and I, in a given week, would interview several Yankees, and

visiting team members who would later become Hall of Famers. In that same

week, we would also interview passionate members of the Woodstock Softball

League. What did Yankee Stadium have in common with the Woodstock Softball

League?

In both, there was a human passion to win. To feel victory. For Wendy and me,

the game played in Woodstock or Yankee Stadium offered a diversion. It was a

living metaphor that helped us see what all humans have in common.

Baseball and Yankee Stadium have always been personal to me—much more

than a game. It was a place where I got to be with my father. A fictional character

in a book I wrote, Journey Through the Narrow Gate, David Cohen, would say,

“In my childhood, I had 12 conversations with my father. Ten of them were at

Yankee Stadium.” It’s a laugh line. For me, always a sweet memory. The

Yankees and Yankee Stadium were more than a place. Memories are happening

moments that play out in the present.

We fans, by making baseball players into stars, miss out on who they really are.

The average fan is not encouraged to see players as people. Sadly, I wonder if

players are encouraged to be people. We demand they perform, and of course

the average salary is close to $6 million per year.

As fans, do we miss out on what we players in the Woodstock Softball League

got? The fun of it all. In Woodstock, we grownups were experiencing the boys’

game. It helped Wendy and me see joy in the major leaguers, too.

I challenged Rickey Henderson to a race. He laughed at me. I played a recording

of an usher from the Oakland Coliseum telling Billy Martin he missed seeing him,

as Billy had recently been the Oakland A’s manager. Billy could not stop telling

me what a nice person I was for sharing his connection to the peanut vendor. We

had regular conversations with the “Hit Man,” Don Mattingly. He was, in 1983,

just becoming a power hitter. I asked Donny if exhaling when he swings was a

means of getting more power. He told me he wasn’t aware of his exhale. He had

not been a power hitter in the minor leagues.

The MLB game was bringing me—a guy and his wife from a weekly

newspaper—into fellowship with elite athletes. What we had in common was that

we were, every week, playing the same game.

The Woodstock Softball League was reconnecting me to a new childhood. Our

softball games were on local TV, too. We had play-by-play announcers

announcing the lineups. Similarly, we gave a “Woodstock State of Mind” award to

Bobby Murcer. There was Bob Scheffing (the voice of God) saying, “I direct your

attention to the first base line—we have Dennis Cole…” To me, it was as if

hearing my name along with, “Mickey Mantle, center field, numbah 7.” On the

first base line, one fan screams out, “Hey Denny, this is your big chance!”

Maybe that’s why they keep rehiring Aaron Boone? You always hear that the

Yankee clubhouse has great chemistry.

What if MLB players could find that sweet spot of fun? To rediscover the

personal call, to love the game. To simply “play ball.”

What if fans could also find the joy of it ? Sure, we have the right to get what our

ticket price costs us. To demand YES Network give us our money’s worth. I get

it. And yet, instead of judging players for the same human flaws we have, we can

grow together on the same field. We can learn from the players’ failures, their

courage, and most of all their teamwork—or their lack of teamwork. We can put

the multimillionaire player and the insurance salesman fan on the same page.

It’s not just a boy’s game. It’s a game only humans can play—old and young, rich

and poor, white and black. If we listen deep inside our hearts, we might hear our

deeper need: a realized longing for freedom and peace. Baseball starts at home.

It’s a kind of perfect game. To win is to come back “home.”

Players and fans—all of us suffer. Human loss, sickness, inevitable death, and

common disappointments. You don’t need me to tell you the current world is in

chaos. Players live on planet Earth, too. No matter how much money they make,

or how much temporary fame they may have, they too are in the same “play” as

us. “All the world’s a stage.” Each of us is not very different from one another.

Baseball, simply played out, is for all of us. It reveals how close to the heart is the

human desire—to just be.

The Yankees and Yankee Stadium have been that kind of place for me. Buying

six boiled hot dogs at every game was a ritual meal—a boy with his father. I think

Brian Cashman understands some or all of what I am saying here. Referring to

the Yankees, Cashman has said, “Nobody is greater than the brand.” I want to

give further insight to that understanding. Nobody—not even Aaron Judge—is

greater than the game. That’s not a put-down of a great player, but a lift-up for

how good a game we have, what we have had, and what we will have—if we

don’t lose heart.

Spring Training is upon us. A new season, and a game to play. In the spirit of a

George Steinbrenner imitation, just before the start of a game, I announced to

Graig Nettles and others surrounding him, “Go out there and win. You have to

win. Do you understand? WIN!” I was having so much fun saying that. I was,

however, sincere in wanting them to win. George Steinbrenner’s passion to win is

very good for current Yankee players and fans to this very day. Playing ball

without a passion to win is like driving a car without oil in its engine.

It’s more than a game. It’s not a fantasy, but a playing out of real story—conflict,

passion, love, and sacrifice. No team wins without sacrifice. We can make this

season our mentor into a greater victory.

The greater game is what we can play. The game of baseball is played out by

superbly skilled professionals. We fans, however, can find ourselves as members

of the same truly elite team—everyone, we humans, playing out our mutual story

together. Not in nostalgia, but right now.

The game is about to begin.

Play ball!