Quotes of the Day

It's not every day that you get an offer to carry the Olympic torch (in my case, in Florence, at approximately 6:40 p.m., 58 days before the scheduled opening of the Winter Games in Turin). Well, I must have either been chosen by my high school track team coach or an Olympic corporate sponsor. Stepping off the Rome-to-Florence train, I began searching for some genuine Olympic spirit. After donning the marshmallow-like XXXL official white warm-up suit over my shirt and tie and corduroys — and a quick change into sneakers — I picked up my blue torch, which is shaped like a field hockey stick and much heavier than it looks. Hmmm. Come to think of it, I never did make the track team.

But the flame must go on. I stepped onto the minibus with 15 other torchbearers, where the final details were explained. Each participant would be dropped off with his or her torch along the route, and simply wait for the preceding relay partner to pass on the flame. We would be surrounded on the run by a police escort and Olympic volunteers, before being picked up again by the bus. Each leg would be no more than 400 meters. "Well, that's good," quipped Nathalie Atkinson, a reporter with the National Post in Toronto. "I trained for 500."

From afar, these torch events have become rituals seemingly more about the sponsors than sportsmanship. The 10,000 people who signed up in Italy risked blending together into a giant ad campaign that stretched from Rome through Tuscany to Genoa, onto a plane for Sardinia and Sicily and back to the north toward Turin. A quick look around, and the people on my minibus might seem like they're all either freeloaders or thrillseekers. I was both, of course.

Atkinson mentioned one hope for a storyline: Joe Torre, the New York Yankees manager, was supposed to be here as a torchbearer too. Not only am I a New Yorker (a Mets fan, though), but my father grew up in the same Brooklyn neighborhood as Torre. And the former MVP himself seems to embody something about the Games, a straightforward but sage man who had overcome illness to succeed in sport with his will as much as his skill. How great would it be to introduce myself, the son of Torre's paesano from Brooklyn, now living here in Italy. And we wound up, carrying the Olympic torch together in Florence. Torre's even Italian-American. Bello indeed! Alas, Torre was not in our group, which by now was rolling through downtown Florence, past the historic Duomo and along the high winter waters of the Arno. But despite the bad motivational rock music — The Final Countdown — blaring behind us, something was happening. As each fellow torchbearer got dropped off, one-by-one, to stand by themselves and await the flame, butterflies were hatching in our stomachs as we gazed out the window.

I was No. 203. I introduced myself to the man who would pass the flame to me. No. 202, Piero Aiazzi, was not a sponsor's idea. The Florence native had applied to participate by Internet, explaining in the registration that he had survived a liver transplant six years ago, and after the operation, had began running regularly. He has since finished three marathons. The 42-year-old father of three is active in promoting organ donation in Italy, where it is still too often taboo. Just before he got off the bus, Piero said he was more emotional than he expected: "I'd thought it would be all about the sponsors." A moment later, another minibus pulled up alongside ours, and there was Joe Torre, sitting alone and adjusting his white ski hat — apparently completely unnoticed by the rowdy Italians around him.

About 20 minutes later, Piero passed me the torch from just below the panoramic Piazzale Michelangelo overlooking Florence. My torchbearer's leg would not only be brief, but also downhill. The view of Florence, though, was breathtaking. Or maybe those are my out-of-shape lungs? Still, I managed to huff out to the Olympic officials running alongside that one of the next torchbearers would be Joe Torre. "When you see him, just mention Brooklyn!" They must have thought I was crazy. Back on the bus, I sat down next to Piero, both of us still a bit breathless, and actually with a bit of sweat under our hats. "Bello, eh?" he said to me. "Bellissimo!" Now on to Turin….

• JEFF ISRAELY
• TIME's intrepid reporter joins the team helping to get the Olympic flame to the winter games in Turin