Baseball Quotations

[thecaptain]

Phil Rizzuto "I'll never forget September sixth nineteen-fifty. I got a letter threatening me, Hank Bauer, Yogi Berra and Johnny Mize. It said if I showed up in uniform against the Red Sox I'd be shot. I turned the letter over to the FBI and told my manager Casey Stengel about it. You know what Casey did? He gave me a different uniform and gave mine to Billy Martin. Can you imagine that! Guess Casey thought it'd be better if Billy got shot."

[Sixty one]

Scooter saying that. I also seem to recall Mickey Mantle saying..."If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself" Correct me if Im wrong.

[SanFrANSKY]

(my personal favorite)

[thecaptain]

Casey Stengel "He'd (Yogi Berra) fall in a sewer and come up with a gold watch." ( this is the site http://baseball-almanac.com/quomenu.shtml)

[thecaptain]

Lefty Gomez
"He (Jimmie Foxx) has muscles in his hair.">>>>>>>>>>When Neil Armstong first set foot on the moon, he and all the space scientists were puzzled by an unidentifiable white object. I knew immediately what it was. That was a home run ball hit off me in 1933 by Jimmie Foxx."

[koko]

"Luck? If the roof fell in and Diz (Dean) was sitting in the middle of the room, everybody else would be buried and a gumdrop would fall in his mouth." - Leo Durocher

"Son, we'd like to keep you around this season but we're going to try and win a pennant." - Casey Stengel

and who said economic didn't play a part in the game until just recently?
"Economics played a role. Raleighs have gone from six fifty to nine dollars a carton, but there's a three-quarter cent coupon on the back. You can get all kinds of things with them, blenders, everything. I saved up enough one time and got Al Bumbry." - Earl Weaver

[koko]

"It's a good thing Babe Ruth isn't here. If he was, George Steinbrenner would have him bat seventh and say he's overweight." - Graig Nettles

[Rich]

"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game."

ATTRIBUTION:Jacques Barzun (b. 1907), U.S. scholar. quoted in Michael Novak, The Joy of Sports, pt. 1 (1976)

[thecaptain]

Catfish Hunter "He'd (Reggie Jackson) give you the shirt off his back. Of course he'd call a press conference to announce it."

[koko]

"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

[koko]

"First I pray to God that nobody hits the ball to me. Then I pray to God that no one hits the ball to Steve Sax." - Pedro Guerrero

"At night time, you just try to keep him out of jail." - David Cone on teammate David Wells

[koko]

And then, there's the classics from Harry Caray:

"Aw, how could he (Jorge Orta) lose the ball in the sun, he's from Mexico."

"There's ball four......ohhhhh! How do you swing at a pitch like that? God
Damn!"

"Whoever tells you, you can have as good of a time sober as you can
drunk, is lying to ya."

[thecaptain]

Originally posted by koko
"First I pray to God that nobody hits the ball to me. Then I pray to God that no one hits the ball to Steve Sax." - Pedro Guerrero

"

if i remember right Tommy Lasorda ask Pedro what he was thinking about when the ball was pitched...

[thecaptain]

Reggie Jackson "It's a fickle town (New York), a tough town. They getcha, boy. They don't let you escape with minor scratches and bruises. They put scars on you here.">>"In the building I live in on Park Avenue there are ten people who could buy the Yankees, but none of them could hit the ball out of Yankee Stadium."

[koko]

Catfish on Reggie Jackson:

"He'd give you the shirt off his back. Of course he'd call a press conference to announce it."

"When you unwrap a Reggie Bar, it tells you how good it is."

[thecaptain]

i was at the opening day when all those Reggie Bar when onto the field.. i think THE MICK AND ROGER raised the flag that day...

[thecaptain]

Tom Tresh "We never thought we could lose as long as Mickey was playing. The point was, we had Mickey and the other team didn't.........Casey Stengel "One of these days he'll hit the ball so hard, it'll burst and all he'll get for his efforts will be a single." .......Phil Rizzuto "I never saw anybody hit the ball so hard. When he swings the bat, you just have to stop and watch........."Whitey Ford "That's what Mickey was all about - winning. Nobody cared more about winning, and nobody took losing harder."

[1-2-3 inning]

those are great

[thecaptain]

Uecker were so funny i put them all up...Bob Uecker's quotations came primarily from his broadcasting career where he is one of the most popular radio announcers!

[Sixty one]

These were great. I wonder if Uecker is still a broadcaster? I haven't seen him on TV in a long time!

[thecaptain]

Quotations FROM Baseball Movies
"Ahh, Jesus, I like him very much, but He no help with curveball." - Serrano. "Are you trying to say Jesus Christ can't hit a curveball?" - Harris in Major League (1989)

"God, I just love baseball." - Robert Redford in The Natural (1984)

"If you build it, he will come." - Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams (1989)

"I love baseball. You know it doesn't have to mean anything, it's just beautiful to watch." - Woody Allen in Zelig (1983)

"People all say that I've had a bad break. But today, today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth." - Gary Cooper in Pride of the Yankees (1942) [read Lou Gehrig quotations for the exact speech - lines are correct, but the order has been changed]
http://baseball-almanac.com/quotes/quogehr.shtml
"Quit trying to stroke everybody out. Strikeouts are boring and besides that, they're facist. Throw some ground balls. They're more democratic." - Crash Davis to Nuke in Bull Durham (1988)

"The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and what could be again." - James Earl Jones in Field of Dreams (1989)

"There's no crying in baseball." - Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own (1992

[thecaptain]

Quotations From Red Barber
"Baseball is dull only to dull minds."

"This is Red Barber speaking. Let me say hello to you all." - First words spoken during the first televised major league game.<<<<<<<<<<<<<

"Whenever you have a tight situation and there's a close pitch, the umpire gets a squawk no matter how he calls it."

"When I was in baseball and you went into the clubhouse, you didn't see ball players with curling irons."

Common Expressions Used By Red Barber

"He's sitting in the catbird seat."
He has the lead.


"Hold the phone."
Manager on the way to the mound.

"Running like a bunny with his tail on fire."
The player can run really fast.

"The bases are F O B's"
Full of Brooklyn(s) Dodger players.

[thecaptain]

Quotations From Miller Huggins
"A good catcher is the quarterback, the carburetor, the lead dog, the pulse taker, the traffic cop and sometimes a lot of unprintable things, but no team gets very far without one."

"A manager has his cards dealt to him and he must play them."

"Any ballplayers that played for me on either the Cardinals or the Yankees could come to me if he were in need and I would give him a helping hand. I made only two exceptions, Carl Mays and Joe Bush. If they were in a gutter, I'd kick them."-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Miller Huggins once fined Babe Ruth $5,000 for staying out three consecutive nights - this was ten times bigger than any previous fine in major league history!

[thecaptain]

Quotations From Don Mattingly
"His (Dwight Gooden) reputation preceded him before he got here."

"Has he (Rickey Henderson) ever been here (Spring Training) the first day? You have to say Rickey's consistent. That's what you want in a ballplayer - consistency."

"Honestly, at one time I though Babe Ruth was a cartoon character. I really did, I mean I wasn't born until 1961 and I grew up in Indiana."

"I like being close (moved his locker) to the bats."

"I'd like to say this was our worst game. Unfortunately, I can't."

"The players get no respect around here. They (the Yankees) give you money, that's it, not respect. We get constantly dogged and players from other teams love to see that. That's why nobody wants to play here."

"This guy is working all week and he brings his son to this show, has to pay $2 to get in, maybe $5 for a picture and then $6 for an autograph. These guys have to think you're a real ass with your head down all the time signing."
Quotations About Don Mattingly
"I'm glad I don't have to face that guy every day. He has that look that few hitters have. I don't know if it's his stance, his eyes or what, but you can tell he means business." - Dwight Gooden

[penguin4]

Joe Dugan on Ruth: "He wasn't a man. He fell out of a tree."

Ping Bodie on rooming with the Bambino on road trips: "I room with his suitcase."

Lefty Gomez to Gehrig the day his streak ended: “Hey Lou, it took them 15 years to get you out of the game. Sometimes I’m out of there in 15 minutes.”

Ruth to pitcher Charlie Root right before he "called" his shot: "I’m going to knock the next pitch right down your god-damned throat.”

Mark Koenig on checking into his room in the newly-renovated Pittsburgh hotel that the Yanks were staying in during the '27 World Series: "I found a step ladder, some workman's tools, and a dirty shirt."

Gehrig right before spring training 1940, the year after he called it quits: “Sure I’d like to be going south with the Yankees. And so, I guess, would about a million other fellows. But I’m luckier than they are-- because I’ve been south with the Yankees.”

[thecaptain]

Quotations From Babe Ruth
"All ballplayers should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill."

"All I can tell them is pick a good one and sock it. I get back to the dugout and they ask me what it was I hit and I tell them I don't know except it looked good."

"As soon as I got out there I felt a strange relationship with the pitcher's mound. It was as if I'd been born out there. Pitching just felt like the most natural thing in the world. Striking out batters was easy."

"Aw, everybody knows that game, the day I hit the homer off ole Charlie Root there in Wrigley Field, the day October first, the third game of that thirty-two World Series. But right now I want to settle all arguments. I didn't exactly point to any spot, like the flagpole. Anyway, I didn't mean to, I just sorta waved at the whole fence, but that was foolish enough. All I wanted to do was give that thing a ride... outta the park... anywhere."

"Baseball changes through the years. It gets milder."

"Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world."

"Cobb is a prick. But he sure can hit. God Almighty, that man can hit."

"Don't ever forget two things I'm going to tell you. One, don't believe everything that's written about you. Two, don't pick up too many checks."

"Gee, its lonesome in the outfield. It's hard to keep awake with nothing to do."

"Hot as hell, ain't it Prez (Calvin Coolidge)?"

"How to hit home runs: I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball...The harder you grip the bat, the more you can swing it through the ball, and the farther the ball will go. I swing big, with everything I've got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can."

"I didn't mean to hit the umpire with the dirt, but I did mean to hit that bastard in the stands."

"I don't give a damn about any actors. What good will John Barrymore do you with the bases loaded and two down in a tight ball game. Either I get the money (more than Barrymore), or I don't play!"

"I'd play for half my salary if I could hit in this dump (Wrigley Field) all the time."

"If I'd just tried for them dinky singles I could've batted around .600."

"If it wasn't for baseball, I'd be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery."

"I'll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will I give up women. They're too much fun."

"I never heard a crowd boo a homer, but I've heard plenty of boos after a strikeout."

"I won't be happy until we have every boy in America between the ages of six and sixteen wearing a glove and swinging a bat."

"Just one (superstition). Whenever I hit a home run, I make certain I touch all four bases."

"Paris ain't much of a town."

"Reading isn't good for a ballplayer. Not good for his eyes. If my eyes went bad even a little bit I couldn't hit home runs. So I gave up reading."

"That last one sounded kinda high to me."

"The termites (cancer) have got me."

"The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime."

"What the hell has Hoover got to do with it (his contract being bigger than the Presidents)? Besides, I had a better year than he did."

[joltingjoe]

From Jim Palmer regarding Reggie Jackson: "there isn't enough mustard in the world to put on that hot dog"

From Leo Durocher when he managed the Dodgers and someone asked him about the rival Giants: "the Giants, are they still in the league?"

Mickey Mantle: "If I know hitting 40 homers and stealing 40 bases was such a big deal I would have done it every year"

Lefty Gomez on Charlie (King Kong) Keller: "he wasn't found by a baseball scout, Frank Buck brought him back alive"

I apologize if any of these were already listed!

[JDPNYY]

Has anyone ever read the book "Oh Holy Cow! The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto" ?

A simply wonderful book if you grew up listening to Phil.

[Michaels07]

"there is always some kid who may be seeing me for the first time or last time. I owe him my best"
Who can the quote be attributed too?

[thecaptain]

Quotations From Joe DiMaggio
"A ball player has to be kept hungry to become a big leaguer. That's why no boy from a rich family has ever made the big leagues."

"All pitchers are born pitchers."

"I came up twice in the game with the bases loaded and both times I hit balls into the alley, four-hundred and fifty feet away. Home runs in any other park. Well, each time my own brother robbed me by making catches on the warning track. Instead of a possible eight RBI, or at least five or six, I got nothing. That night, Dom came over to my place for dinner. I remember letting him in the door and then not speaking to him until we were almost done eating. I was that mad."

"I can remember a reporter asking me for a quote, and I didn't know what a quote was. I thought it was some kind of soft drink."

"I'd like to thank the good Lord for making me a Yankee."

"If anyone wants to know why three kids in one family made it to the big leagues they just had to know how we helped each other and how much we practiced back then. We did it every minute we could."

"I feel like I have reached the stage where I can no longer produce for my club, my manager, and my teammates. I had a poor year, but even if I had hit .350, this would have been my last year. I was full of aches an pains and it had become a chore for me to play. When baseball is no longer fun, it's no longer a game."

"If I were sitting down with George Steinbrenner (to discuss a salary) and based on what Dave Winfield got for his statistics, I'd have to say, 'George, you and I are about to become partners.'"

"I'm a ballplayer, not an actor."

"I'm just a ballplayer with one ambition, and that is to give all I've got to help my ball club win. I've never played any other way."

"I no longer have it (desire to play)."

"I think there are some players born to play ball."

"Mr. Barrow, there is only one answer to that, Mr. Gehrig (contract was only $1,000 more) is terribly underpaid."

"Now I've had everything except for the thrill of watching Babe Ruth play."

"There is always some kid who may be seeing me for the first or last time, I owe him my best."

"The test of an outfielder's skill comes when he has to go against the fence to make a catch."

"Too many kids today are playing major league ball and don't belong there."

"You always get a special kick on opening day, no matter how many you go through. You look forward to it like a birthday party when you're a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen."

"You start chasing a ball and your brain immediately commands your body to 'Run forward, bend, scoop up the ball, peg it to the infield,' then your body says, 'Who me?'"

[Dave Visbeck]

Who said?

"The game of baseball is a clean, straight game."

[penguin4]

Who said?

"The game of baseball is a clean, straight game."

Bud Selig?

[Dave Visbeck]

Bud Selig?

Bud Selig of Milwaukee? Yeah ... right. How about another quote from the Milwaukee area ...

"I shoulda knew better. I just didn't have the sense I was born with. It matters. It still matters."

[JL25and3]

Bud Selig of Milwaukee? Yeah ... right. How about another quote from the Milwaukee area ...

"I shoulda knew better. I just didn't have the sense I was born with. It matters. It still matters."

From SABR's Bseball Biography Project:

...Asinof recounts his interview of Felsch for Eight Men Out, his authoritative 1963 chronicle of the scandal. The former minor leaguer first started his detailed research in 1960 when only four of the eight Black Sox were still alive. Cicotte, Gandil and Risberg either refused or stonewalled Asinof's inquiries. Felsch became his primary source.

During his research, Asinof visited Milwaukee in an attempt to interview the ailing Felsch. Even after receiving repeated phone calls and a letter, the protective Marie continued to turn down the author. Asinof finally mustered enough courage to visit 2460 N. 49th Street only after a man he met in a bar, who had been acquainted with Felsch, described him as a "real good guy" that everybody liked.

Marie relented when the polite yet persistent Asinof appeared at her door with a bottle of Scotch to share with Happy, as Reutlinger did in 1920. She led him to the dark upstairs sitting room, asked for kindness in his questioning, and allowed the two men to spend the afternoon in conversation. Asinof detected hurt, guilt, and remorse in Felsch's voice as he said, "I shoulda knew better. I just didn't have the sense I was born with. It matters. It still matters."

[49andCounting]

Who said?

"The game of baseball is a clean, straight game."

President William Howard Taft

[Dave Visbeck]

President William Howard Taft

You are correct.

[thecaptain]

Quotations About Baseball Rules
"I made a game effort to argue but two things were against me: the umpires and the rules." - Hall of Fame Manager Leo Durocher

"In spite of their importance we fear there are sections of the Official Rules that are somewhat less than exhilarating. So don't bother your pretty wits about them; simply race through the few pages assembled here and we guarantee that you'll end up knowing more about baseball than any man worth looking at." - A Housewife's Guide to Baseball (1958)

"I try not to break the rules, but merely to test their elasticity." - Owner Bill Veeck, Jr.

"Number one rule, attend to business" - Lefty Grove

"Only in baseball can a team player be a pure individualist first and a team player second, within the rules and spirit of the game." - Branch Rickey

"Players like rules. If they didn't have any rules, they wouldn't have anything to break." - Coach Lee Walls

"Rules are made to be broken, so there won't be any rules." - Manager Billy Herman

"The base paths belonged to me, the runner. The rules gave me the right. I always went into a bag full speed, feet first. I had sharp spikes on my shoes. If the baseman stood where he had no business to be and got hurt, that was his fault." - Ty Cobb

"The only thing I believe is this: A player does not have to like a manager and he does not have to respect a manager. All he has to do is obey the rules." - Hall of Fame Manager Sparky Anderson

[penguin4]

"I managed good, but boy, did they play bad." -Rocky Bridges

[JDPNYY]

Originally posted by penguin4
"I managed good, but boy, did they play bad." -Rocky Bridges

Rocky Bridges was awesome.

Here's a few more:

"You mix two jiggers of scotch to one jigger of Metrecal. So far I've lost five pounds and my driver's license." - Rocky Bridges, minor league manager, on his new diet drink

"The players are too serious. They don't have any fun any more. They come to camp with a financial adviser and they read the stock market page before the sports pages. They concern themselves with statistics rather than simply playing the game and enjoying it for what it is." - Rocky Bridges, from The Sporting News, December 12, 1970

"It's a good thing I stayed in Cincinnati for four years -- It took me that long to learn how to spell it." - Rocky Bridges

"Coaching third with a pitcher on base is like being a member of a bomb disposal squad. The thing could blow up in your face at any moment." - Rocky Bridges

"You know when you've got it made? When you get your name in the crossword puzzles." - Rocky Bridges

"I prefer fast food." - Rocky Bridges, on why he won't eat snails

"No little boy in the hospital asked me to hit one, I didn't promise it to my kid for his birthday, and my wife will be too shocked to appreciate it. I hit it for me." - Rocky Bridges, after hitting his first home run in two seasons

"The more I played with them, the more I found that no one could take a joke - my batting average." - Rocky Bridges, on his two seasons with the Dodgers and his .237 batting average

"The trouble with having a wired jaw is that you can never tell when you're sleepy. You can't yawn." - Rocky Bridges

On Jose Gonzalez changing his name to Jose Uribe: "He was definitely the player to be named later." - Rocky Bridges

[JDPNYY]

"I heard doctors revived a man who had been dead for 4-1/2 minutes. When they asked him what it was like being dead, he said it was like listening to Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto during a rain delay." - David Letterman

[thecaptain]

Quotations From Bill Terry
"Are the Dodgers still in the league?"

"Baseball must be a great game to survive the fools who run it."

"He (John McGraw) was the type of fellow who would call all the pitches until you got in a spot, then he'd leave you on your own."

"Hitting is business. With two strikes you really protect that plate."

"I don't know what kept me out (of the Hall of Fame), newspapermen or just that you don't want me up here."

"I had great control, I never missed hitting the other's fellow bat."

"I played baseball because I could make more money doing that than I could doing anything else."

"Is Brooklyn still in the league?"

"No business in the world has ever made more money with poorer management."

"To hit .400 you need a great start and you can't have a slump. There year I did it, I was around .410, .412 all season and I was really hitting the ball on the nose."

[thecaptain]

Quotations From Dave Winfield
"Everyone has a breaking point, turning point, stress point, the game is permeated with it. The fans don't see it because we make it look so efficient. But internally, for a guy to be successful, you have to be like a clock spring, wound but not loose at the same time."

"Good hitters don't just go up and swing. They always have a plan. Call it an educated deduction. You visualize. You're like a good negotiator. You know what you have, you know what he has, then you try to work it out."

"I never had to cheat, I get them with what I got."

"The only players that are having fun are those having a good year, feasting on pitching or blowing down hitters and garnering all the adulation that goes with it. But, if you're not hitting or not throwing well, or are injured, you better look for fun someplace else."

"These days baseball is different. You come to spring training, you get your legs ready, you arms loose, your agents ready your lawyer lined up."

"Tom Cruise only makes one or two film appearances a year. A baseball player can be the hero or the goat one-hundred and sixty-two times a year."

[Bozidar]

"Pitching is work, Hitting is fun."

-- Pitching star Wes Ferrell, who hit 38 home runs and batted .280 lifetime

[thecaptain]

Home Run Quotations
"Adios!"
Wayne Hagan

"Back, back, back, back... Gone!"
Chris Berman of ESPN

"Bonsoir, elle est partie!" French for "So long, she's gone!"
Rodger Brulotte

"Bye bye baby!"
Russ Hodges

"Forget it!"
Vin Scully

"Get up, get outa here, gone for _____!"
Bob Uecker

"Go crazy, folks! Go crazy!"
Jack Buck (after Ozzie Smith home run in 1985 NLCS)

"Goodbye baseball!"
Dick Risenhoover

"Goodbye Dolly Grey!"
Leo Durocher

"Hey hey!"
Jack Brickhouse

"Holy Cow!"
Phil Rizzuto

"It could be, it might be... It is, A home run!"
Harry Caray

"It's going, going... gone!"
Harry Hartman

"Kiss it goodbye!"
Bob Prince

"Long drive, way back, warning track wall, you can
touch em' all (player name)."
Greg Schulte

"Long gone!"
Ernie Harwell

"Open the window Aunt Minnie, here it comes!"
Rosey Roswell

"She is gone!"
Vin Scully on Kirk Gibson's 1988 World Series Home Run

"Tell it goodbye!"
Lon Simmons / Jon Miller

"That ball is going and it ain't coming back!"
Jeff Kingery

"That ball is history!"
Eric Nadel

"They usually show movies on a flight like that."
Ken Coleman

"Watch that baby... Outta here!"
Harry Kalas

"Whoo, boy! Next time around, bring me back my stomach!"
Jack Brickhouse

"You can put it on the board.. Yessssssss!"
Ken "Hawk" Harrellson

[koko]

Your puny ballparks are too small to contain my gargantuan blasts! Bring me the finest meats and cheeses for a clubhouse feast! - Kenny Mayne

That must be a Homer, Simpson, cuz the pitcher just said D'oh! - Mayne

It's deep, and I don't think it's playable. - Keith Olberman

[koko]

Dizzy Dean :

"The doctors x-rayed my head and found nothing."

"It ain't braggin' if you can back it up."

"If Satch and I were pitching on the same team, we'd cinch the pennant by July 4 and go fishing until World Series time."

"If I'da known he was gonna throw one, I'da thrown one, too." - Dizzy Dean (St. Louis Cardinals pitcher), after his brother Paul threw a no-hitter in the second game of
a double-header, after Dizzy threw a two-hitter in the first game

[koko]

Lefty Gomez:

"I don't want to throw him nothing. Maybe he'll just get tired of waiting and leave." - Lefty Gomez, answering Bill Dickey's question: What do you want to throw to
Jimmy Foxx.

"One rule I had was make your best pitch and back up third base. That relay might get away and you've got another shot at him."

"I am throwing twice as hard as I ever did. It's just not getting there as fast."

[thecaptain]

Quotations From Roger Maris
"As a ballplayer, I would be delighted to do it again. As an individual, I doubt if I could possibly go through it again."

"Candlestick was built on the water. It should have been built under it."

"Every day I went to the ballpark in Yankee Stadium as well as on the road people were on my back. The last six years in the American League were mental hell for me. I was drained of all my desire to play baseball."

"I don't know if I want to go to New York. They'll have to pay me a lot more money because I like it here in Kansas City."

"I don't want to be Babe Ruth. He was a great ballplayer. I'm not trying to replace him. The record is there and damn right I want to break it, but that isn't replacing Babe Ruth."

"I feel that I was a good all-around player, I had good speed, a good arm and could play the outfield."

"I never wanted all this hoopla. All I wanted is to be a good ball player and hit twenty-five or thirty homers, drive in a hundred runs, hit .280 and help my club win pennants. I just wanted to be one of the guys, an average player having a good season."

"I think the most privacy I had was when the game was going on."

"It would have been a helluva lot more fun if I had not hit those sixty-one home runs."

"It's a business. If I could make more money down in the zinc mines I'd be mining zinc."

"It's like obituaries, when you die they finally give you good reviews."

"Maybe I'm not a great man but I damn well want to break the record."

"Now they talk on the radio about the record set by Ruth, and DiMaggio and Henry Aaron. But they rarely mention mine. Do you know what I have to show for the sixty-one home runs? Nothing, exactly nothing."

[thecaptain]

Quotations From Bill Dickey
"A catcher must want to catch. He must make up his mind that it isn't the terrible job it is painted, and that he isn't going to say every day, 'Why, oh why with so many other positions in baseball did I take up this one.'"

"He (Babe Ruth) hits a ball harder and further than any man I ever saw."

"He (Lou Gehrig) just went out and did his job every day."

"I don't recall your name but you sure were a sucker for a high inside curve."

"I loved to make a great defensive play, I'd rather do that than hit a home run."

"It shore is perty (award) - much obliged."

"You guys got to see this kid (Mickey Mantle) we have in camp. Out of class C ball, hits 'em both ways - five-hundred feet both ways! You've got to see him."

[thecaptain]

Quotations From Mickey Mantle
"After I hit a home run I had a habit of running the bases with my head down. I figured the pitcher already felt bad enough without me showing him up rounding the bases."

"All I had was natural ability."

"All the ballparks and the big crowds have a certain mystique. You feel attached, permanently wedded to the sounds that ring out, to the fans chanting your name, even when there are only four or five thousand in the stands on a Wednesday afternoon."

"A lot of people wrote that Roger (Maris) and I didn't like each other and that we didn't get along. Nothing could be further from the truth."

"A team is where a boy can prove his courage on his own. A gang is where a coward goes to hide."

"As far as I'm concerned, Aaron is the best ball player of my era. He is to baseball of the last fifteen years what Joe DiMaggio was before him. He's never received the credit he's due."

"But god-damn, to think you're a .300 hitter and end up at .237 in your last season, then find yourself looking at a lifetime .298 average - it made me want to cry."

"Every time I see his name (Dean Chance) on a lineup card, I feel like throwing up."

"Heroes are people who are all good with no bad in them. That's the way I always saw Joe DiMaggio. He was beyond question one of the greatest players of the century."

"Hitting the ball was easy. Running around the bases was the tough part."

"I always loved the game, but when my legs weren't hurting it was a lot easier to love."

"I could never be a manager. All I have is natural ability."

"I don't care who you are, you hear those boos."

"If I had played my career hitting singles like Pete (Rose), I'd wear a dress."

"If I knew I'd live this long, I would have taken better care of myself."

"I hated to bat against Drysdale. After he hit you he'd come around, look at the bruise on your arm and say, 'Do you want me to sign it?'"

"I'll play baseball for the Army or fight for it, whatever they want me to do."

"In 1960 when Pittsburgh beat us in the World Series, we outscored them 55-27. It was the only time I think the better team lost. I was so disappointed I cried on the plane ride home."

"It's unbelievable how much you don't know about the game you've been playing all your life."

"It was all I lived for, to play baseball."

"My dad taught me to switch-hit. He and my grandfather, who was left-handed, pitched to me everyday after school in the back yard. I batted lefty against my dad and righty against my granddad."

"Roger Maris was as good a man and as good a ballplayer as there ever was."

"Somebody once asked me if I ever went up to the plate trying to hit a home run. I said, 'Sure, every time.'"

"Sometimes I sit in my den at home and read stories about myself. Kids used to save whole scrapbooks on me. They get tired of them and mail them to me. I'll go in there and read them, and you know what? They might as well be about Musial and DiMaggio, it's like reading about somebody else."

"Sometimes I think if I had the same body and the same natural ability and someone else's brain, who knows how good a player I might have been."

"Sorry Mickey, but because of the way you lived on Earth, you can't come in. But, before you leave, would you autograph these baseballs for HIM." - Mantle quoting St. Peter

"The best team I ever saw, and I really mean this, was the '61 Yankees.I never got to see the '27 Yankees. Everyone says that was the greatest team ever, but I think it would've been a great series if we'd have had the chance to play them."

"The biggest game I ever played in was probably Don Larsen's perfect game."

"The only thing I can do is play baseball. I have to play ball. It's the only thing I know."

"They (the Athletics) should have come out of the dugout on tippy-toes, holding hands and singing."

"Today's Little Leaguers, and there are millions of them each year, pick up how to hit and throw and field just by watching games on TV. By the time they're out of high school, the good ones are almost ready to play professional ball."

"To play 18 years in Yankee Stadium is the best thing that could ever happen to a ballplayer."

"Well, baseball was my whole life. Nothing's ever been as fun as baseball."

"When I hit a home run I usually didn't care where it went. So long as it was a home run was all that mattered."

"You don't realize how easy this game is until you get up in that broadcasting booth."