I was a ballplayer but only for a limited time. I grew up playing in Wisconsin. It's a very sports-centric part of the country that I grew up in and I played a lot of sports but baseball first and foremost. I played through high school. I was a middle-infielder.
I think Whitman more than any other poet possessed the gift of revealing to others the beauty of everything around us the beauty of nature the beauty of human beings.