"Neil Simon [born Marvin Neil Simon] dropped Marvin as a baseball-obsessed kid, after deciding that it would sound awkward when the loudspeaker at Yankee Stadium announced that Marvin Simon would be covering center field for the injured Joe DiMaggio."

["When I was 16 years old," Simon recalled years later, "Danny (his brother) said, 'You're going to be the best playwright in America.'" Simon gave the prediction little credence because "I thought I was going to be Joe DiMaggio." His unrealistic ambitions later led him to enlist in the air force, hoping to become a pilot -- even though he was colorblind and couldn't even drive a car!]