Athletics and academics: the soul of culture.(Athletics: Is the Tail Wagging the Dog?)

Baker shares his admiration to two people since childhood--Ted Williams, the Splendid Splinter of Boston Red Sox and Francis James Child, an English professor. The examples of Child and Williams illustrate very well that extraordinary ability does not come easy. As university teachers, he opines that they need to take just one thing, their discipline, and work as hard at it as Child did on his ballads and Williams did on his batting.