The players want to take the game to a new audience and Chinese fans want to see world-class stars in action, so it's a perfect match.

The play is funny. And people love baseball. But there's a moral lesson. 'Rounding Third' is particularly suitable for that part of the audience made up of young parents. We are a generation of helicopter parents, constantly hovering over our kids, fussing with them.

The playoffs are all about starting over, ... (The championship series) gives us what we've wanted for a long time, a culminating end to our season. If we do anything approaching any other sports, it's a huge impact on our overall television position, and it helps carry our audience into the fall.

The point I've always made is that I'm writing for a general audience, rather than just for an audience of academics or fellow historians.

The people who worked at the clubs just assumed I was a tagalong girlfriend or groupie. I'd get up on stage and the audience was just like, 'Show me your tits!' I had nothing to show anyway.