You could look at the guy next to you and you knew what he went through. You'd know you'd go through anything with that guy.

Tar Heel would always come through and just pound North State. But it was fun, and I think it's always going to be fun for everyone involved. You had the two leagues, and you always met up for the city championship, and then you were also separated in all-stars. It was really cool how they did it, but when you were playing a team from North State, you wanted to represent well for the Tar Heel League.

Jake has tremendous feet and hands. He gets rid of the ball and he's very accurate, which is key. You never throw anybody out throwing the ball to center field. He never tries to outdo what his capabilities are. He trusts his ability that he can throw guys out.

It's funny because even to this day, people still know what Little League team they played for. And you talk about it and joke about it. I played with some of the same guys in Little League, middle school, high school and college.

My fictitious characters will take the bit between their teeth and gallop off and do something that I hadn't counted on. However, I always insist on dragging them back to the straight and narrow.

We read (the phrase) in the forward, where it talked about speakeasies. We didn't want a bar and grill at the end of the name, and we kept coming to that (phrase).