FAMOUS BASEBALL QUOTES
Baseball is dull only to those with dull minds. -Red Smith, sportswriter The phrase "off with the crack of the bat," while romantic, is really meaningless, since the outfielder should be in motion long before he hears the sound of the ball meeting the bat. - Joe DiMaggio I'm throwing just as hard as I ever did. The ball's just not getting there as fast. - Lefty Gomez, late in his career I love signing autographs. I'll sign anything but veal cutlets. My ball point pen slips on veal cutlets. - Casey Stengel Baseball gives every American boy a chance to excel, not just be as good as somebody else but to be better than somebody else. - Ted Williams There's sunshine, fresh air and the team's behind us. Let's play two. -Ernie Banks Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball. - Jacques Barzun I wish I was half the ballplayer he is. - Al Kaline, on Mickey Mantle It's like Christmas, except it's warmer. - Pete Rose, on Opening Day He's got a gun concealed about his person. They can't tell me he throws them balls with his arm. - Ring Lardner, about Walter Johnson No business has ever made more money with poorer management. [Baseball] can survive anything. - Bill Terry What's the best way to pitch to Stan Musial? That's easy. Walk him and then try to pick him off first base. - Joe Garagiola Over the long haul of a whole season, baseball selects for diligent craftsmen. - Tom Boswell So many of the owners think of me and all the other players essentially as laborers. They have no appreciation of the artistic value of what I do.... How can they be in baseball and not see what it's all about? Pitching is a beautiful thing. It's an art. - Tom Seaver Most ball games are lost, not won. - Casey Stengel Throwing a fastball by Henry Aaron is like trying to sneak the sunrise past a rooster. - Curt Simmons, Phillies lefthander With those who don't give a damn about baseball, I can only sympathize. I do not resent them. I am even willing to concede that many of them are physically clean, good to their mothers and in favor of world peace. But while the game is on, I can't think of anything to say to them. - Art Hill Some people give their bodies to science. I give mine to baseball. - Ron Hunt, hit by pitches 243 times To know baseball is to continue to aspire to the condition of freedom. - A. Bartlett Giamatti Good pitching will beat good hitting any time, and vice versa. - Bob Veale Bob Gibson is the luckiest pitcher I ever saw. He always pitches when the other team doesn't score any runs. - Tim McCarver Every great hitter works on the theory that the pitcher is more afraid of him than he is of the pitcher. - Ty Cobb Babe Ruth is dead. Throw strikes. - Earl Weaver to a picher Pious young Baltimore player: Gee, Skip, ya gotta walk with the Lord. Earl Weaver: I'd rather you walked with the bases loaded. I'm not an athlete. I'm a professional baseball player. John Kruck Managing is like holding a dove in your hand. Squeeze too hard and you kill it; not hard enough and it flies away. - Tommy Lasorda Talking about baseball, there is one thing I want to complain about. I think they have nearly destroyed the game by putting those goddamn big television screens out in center field.... I'm sure it must affct the players too. - Dr. James M Buchannan, 1986 Nobel Prize in Economics I've always thought that if you hit the second deck, it should be two runs. Fifth deck, that's it, game over, A's win. - Jose Canseco Do they still play the blues in Chicago, When the Cubbies take the field?.... - Steve Goodman The phrase "off with the crack of the bat," while romantic, is really meaningless, since the outfielder should be in motion long before he hears the sound of the ball meeting the bat. - Joe DiMaggio I'm throwing just as hard as I ever did. The ball's just not getting there as fast. - Lefty Gomez, late in his career I love signing autographs. I'll sign anything but veal cutlets. My ball point pen slips on veal cutlets. - Casey Stengel Pittsburgh centerfielder Andy Van Slyke told reporters that because the Mets' Darryl Strawberry was hitting like Superman, the Pirate pitchers were planning to use Kryptonite balls. [Strawberry then hit a 3-run homer and two other balls to the warning track] Asked what had happened, Van Slyke replied, 'He used a lead bat.' - Sports Illustrated Baseball gives every American boy a chance to excel, not just be as good as somebody else but to be better than somebody else. - Ted Williams The best thing about baseball is, there's no homework. - Dan Quisenberry Baseball is reality at its harshest....You have to introduce a fictional world to survive. - John Lowenstein Baseball is simple. All you have to do is sit on your butt, spit tobacco, and nod at the stupid things your managers says. - Bill Lee Movie baseball is inexorably entertaining...real baseball is too serious, most of the time, to be fun at all. - Roger Angell Each club has a special hitting personality. One club will watch your delivery and say, "Oh boy, here com and they'll jump on it. Others say, "Oh boy, here's a change-up." The Pirates just say, "Oh boy, here comes a baseball." - Don Sutton, on the 1973 Pirates Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball. - Jacques Barzun Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being ended sooner....It combines the best features of that primitive form of cricket known as Tip and Run with those of lawn tennis, Puss-in-the-corner and Handel's Messiah. - George Bernard Shaw You throw me your best stuff. I'll see if I can hit it. That's big league baseball. - Bob Horner I wish I was half the ballplayer he is. - Al Kaline, on Mickey Mantle It's like Christmas, except it's warmer. - Pete Rose, on Opening Day He's got a gun concealed about his person. They can't tell me he throws them balls with his arm. - Ring Lardner, about Walter Johnson It's a wierd scene. You win a few baseball games and all of a sudden you're surrounded by reporters an TV men with cameras asking you about Viet Nam and race relations. - Vida Blue (1973) No business has ever made more money with poorer management. [Baseball] can survive anything. - Bill Terry Watching Frank Howard come out of the Dodger dugout to start a game is like watching the opening scene of a horror movie. You know the bit: there's an explosion under a polar ice cap some place, the earth rumbles and opens up, and out of it comes this Thing. - Jim Murray Baseball has done more to move America in the right direction than all the professional patriots with their billions of cheap words. - Monte Irvin What's the best way to pitch to Stan Musial? That's easy. Walk him and then try to pick him off first base. - Joe Garagiola Over the long haul of a whole season, baseball selects for diligent craftsmen. - Tom Boswell So many of the owners think of me and all the other players essentially as laborers. They have no appreciation of the artistic value of what I do.... How can they be in baseball and not see what it's all about? Pitching is a beautiful thing. It's an art. - Tom Seaver Most ball games are lost, not won. - Casey Stengel Throwing a fastball by Henry Aaron is like trying to sneak the sunrise past a rooster. - Curt Simmons, Phillies lefthander With those who don't give a damn about baseball, I can only sympathize. I do not resent them. I am even willing to concede that many of them are physically clean, good to their mothers and in favor of world peace. But while the game is on, I can't think of anything to say to them. - Art Hill Some people give their bodies to science. I give mine to baseball. - Ron Hunt, hit by pitches 243 times Baseball is very big with my people. It figures. It's the only time we can get to shake a bat at a white man without starting a riot. - Dick Gregory To know baseball is to continue to aspire to the condition of freedom. - A. Bartlett Giamatti Maybe over the wintertime you talk contracts and money, but once you get on the field, it's pride, it's all pride. - Carl Yastrzemski You don't always *make* an out. Sometimes the pitcher *gets* you out. - Carl Yastrzemski All Earl [Weaver] knows about pitching is that he couldn't hit it. - Mike Cuellar The secret of success as a pitcher lies in getting a job with the Yankees. - Waite Hoyt (1927) Any pitcher who throws at a batter and deliberately tries to hit him is a Communist. - Alvin Dark Good pitching will beat good hitting any time, and vice versa. - Bob Veale To a pitcher a base hit is the perfect example of negative feedback. - Steve Hovley (Seattle Pilots OF) Bob Gibson is the luckiest pitcher I ever saw. He always pitches when the other team doesn't score any runs. - Tim McCarver Every great hitter works on the theory that the pitcher is more afraid of him than he is of the pitcher. - Ty Cobb [Bob] Gibson pitches as though he's double parked. - Vin Scully Babe Ruth is dead. Throw strikes. - Earl Weaver My best game plan is to sit on the bench and call out specific instructions like "C'mon Boog," "Get hold of one, Frank," or "Let's go, Brooks." - Earl Weaver Pious young Baltimore player: Gee, Skip, ya gotta walk with the Lord. I'd rather you walked with the bases loaded. - Earl Weaver I'm not an athlete. I'm a professional baseball player. - John Kruk Yogisms It ain't over 'til it's over. It's deja vu all over again. When you come to a fork in the road, take it. If you don't know where you're going, you're liable to wind up some place else. You can see a lot just by observing. Rube Walker, the Mets' pitching coach: Hey, Yogi. What time is it? Yogi Berra: Ya mean now? How do I like school? I like it closed. It gets late early out here. Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical. A nickle ain't worth a dime anymore. You've got to be careful if you don't know where you are going because you might not get there. We made too many wrong mistakes. It's so crowded nobody goes ther anymore. I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four. Waitress: Do you want your pizza cut into four or eight slices? Yogi: Four, I don't think I can eat eight. Watching a Steve McQueen movie on TV: He must have made that before he died. Mayor Lindsay's wife, Mary: You look nice and cool. Yogi: You don't look so hot yourself. You have to give 100 percent in the first half of the game. If that isn't enough, in the second half, you have to give what is left. Yogi in a telegram to Johnny Bench: Congratulations. I knew the record would stand until it was broken. Once I bought a lot of insurance. . . . [A guy in the clubhouse] said I was foolish and what good would all that money do me and I said, I will get it when I die.