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| “The only real game, I think, in the world is baseball.” –Babe Ruth, outfielder/pitcher. |
First pitch: “Baseball
is a red-blooded sport for red-blooded men. It's no pink tea, and mollycoddles
had better stay out. It's a struggle for supremacy, a survival of the fittest.”
–Ty Cobb, outfielder
“We know we're better than this,
but we can't prove it.” — Tony Gwynn,
outfielder
“The game isn’t over until it’s over.” –Yogi Berra, catcher,
manager.
“Bob Gibson is the luckiest pitcher I ever saw. He always
pitches when the other team doesn't score any runs.” — Tim McCarver, catcher
“Beethoven can't really be great because his picture isn't
on a bubble gum card.” — Charles Schulz,
syndicated cartoonist
“I never threw an illegal pitch. The trouble is, once in a
while I toss one that ain't never been seen by this generation.” — Satchel Paige, pitcher
“Branca throws. There’s a long fly. It’s gonna be... I believe... The Giants win
the pennant. The Giants win the pennant.
The Giants win the pennant...” --Russ Hodges, broadcaster.
“There have been only two authentic geniuses in the world,
Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare.” — Tallulah
Bankhead, actress
“Who is this Baby Ruth? And what does she do?” — George Bernard Shaw, playwright
“Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand
Canyon is only a hole...” –George Will, author, reporter.
“It’s a great day for baseball—Let’s play two.” –Ernie
Banks, outfielder.
“I think I throw the ball as hard as anyone. The ball just
doesn't get there as fast.” — Eddie Bane,
pitcher
“Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can
succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.” –Ted
Williams, outfielder
“The funny thing
about these uniforms is that you hang them in the closet and they get smaller
and smaller.” — Curt Flood, outfielder
“I watch a lot of baseball on
radio.” — Gerald Ford, U.S. President
“The crowd makes the ballgame.” –
Ty Cobb, outfielder
“If you get three strikes, even the best lawyer in the world
can't get you off.” — Bill Veeck,
baseball club owner
“Trying to sneak a pitch past Hank Aaron is like trying to
sneak the sunrise past a rooster. — Joe
Adcock, first base.
“He slud into second with a standup
double.” –Jerry Coleman, infielder,
broadcaster
“Besides...I had a better year than he did.” —Babe Ruth replied when asked in 1929 how
he felt asking for a raise that would make him earn more than U.S. President
Herbert Hoover.
"Man may penetrate the outer reaches of the universe,
he may solve the very secret of eternity itself, but for me, the ultimate human
experience is to witness the flawless execution of a hit-and-run."
--Branch Rickey, baseball owner.
“Fans don’t boo nobodies.” –Reggie
Jackson, outfielder
“There's no crying in baseball!” — Tom Hanks, actor
“I'm not a headline guy. I know that as long as I was
following (Babe) Ruth to the plate I could have stood on my head and no one
would have known the difference. –Lou Gehrig,
first baseman
“Well, it took me 17 years to get 3,000 hits in baseball,
and I did it in one afternoon on the golf course.” — Hank Aaron, outfielder
“Ninety percent of this game is
half mental.” — Yogi Berra, catcher,
manager
“ A hot dog at the game beats roast
beef at the Ritz.” — Humphrey Bogart,
actor
“His (Walter Johnson) fastball looked about the size of a watermelon
seed and it hissed at you as it passed.” –Ty Cobb, outfielder
“We only need two players to be a contender. Babe Ruth and
Sandy Koufax.” - Whitey Herzog, manager.
Pee Wee: “Diz, that pitcher’s doin’ a great job. What’s he throwing out there?”
Diz: “...been watching the guy for four innings and I
believe he’s throwing a baseball.” –on
air banter between broadcasters Pee Wee Reese and Jerome “Dizzy” Dean.
“When I came up to bat with three men on and two outs in the
ninth, I looked in the other team's dugout and they were already in street
clothes.” – Bob Uecker, catcher,
broadcaster.
“The doctors x-rayed my head and found nothing.” –Dizzy Dean, pitcher, broadcaster
“There ain't much to being a ballplayer, if you're a
ballplayer. — Honus Wagner, infielder.
“That *** damned Dutchman (Honus Wagner) is the only man in
the game I can't scare.” –Ty Cobb, outfielder
“Us ballplayers do things backward. First we play, then we
retire and go to work.” — Charlie
Gehringer, infielder
“Running a ball club is like
raising kids who fall out of trees.” — Tom
Trebelhorn
“Sure I played, did you think I was born age 70 sitting in a
dugout trying to manage guys like you?” — Casey
Stengel, to Mickey Mantle
“When you start the game, they don't say "Work
ball!" They say "Play ball!" — Willie Stargell, first base
“There are two theories on hitting the knuckleball.
Unfortunately, neither one of them works. — Charlie
Lau, catcher
“The way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until the ball
stops rolling and then to pick it up.” — Bob
Uecker, catcher, broadcaster
“Think? How the hell are you gonna
think and hit at the same time?” — Yogi
Berra
“The majority of American males put themselves to sleep by
striking out the batting order of the New York Yankees.” — James Thurber, author
“I'd walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play baseball.”
–Pete Rose, player, manager.
“He's the strangest hitter in baseball. Figure him out one
way and he'll kill you another.” — Sandy
Koufax on Roberto Clemente
“Career highlights? I had two. I got an intentional walk
from Sandy Koufax and I got out of a rundown against the Mets.” –Bob Uecker, catcher, broadcaster.
“ Slump? I ain't in no slump. I
just ain't hitting.” — Yogi Berra
“ A man once told me to walk with the Lord. I'd rather walk
with the bases loaded.” — Ken Singleton,
outfielder
“I'm the straw that stirs the drink.”
–Reggie Jackson, outfielder.
“It ain’t braggin’ if you can back
it up.” –Dizzy Dean pitcher, broadcaster
“Dave Winfield goes back to the wall, he hits his head on
the wall and it rolls off! It's rolling all the way back to second base. This
is a terrible thing for the Padres.” –Jerry
Coleman, infielder, broadcaster.
“If you don't succeed at first, try
pitching.” — Jack Harshman.
“Rich Folkers is throwing up in the
bullpen.” –Jerry Coleman, infielder,
broadcaster
“The Hall of Fame is
for baseball people. Heaven is for good people.” — Jim Dwyer, pitcher
“In the beginning I used to make one terrible play a game.
Then I got so I'd make one a week and finally I'd pull a bad one about once a
month. Now, I'm trying to keep it down to one a season.” –Lou Gehrig, first baseman.
“I swing big, with everything I've got. I hit big or I miss
big. I like to live as big as I can.”
–Babe Ruth, outfielder
“I ain't afraid to tell the world that it don't take school
stuff to help a fella play ball.” – “Shoeless”
Joe Jackson, outfielder.
“The baseball mania has run its course. It has no future as
a professional endeavor.”— Cincinnati
Gazette newspaper editorial, 1879
“You never ask why
you've been fired because if you do, they're liable to tell you.” –Jerry Coleman, infielder, broadcaster
“If I had my career to play over, one thing I'd do
differently is swing more. Those 1,200 walks I got, nobody remembers them.”
–Pee Wee Reese, infielder/broadcaster.
“I led the league in go get 'em
next time.” –Bob Uecker, catcher,
broadcaster.
“The secret of successful managing is to keep the five guys
who hate you away from the four who haven’t made up their minds.” –Casey Stengel, manager.
“Being with a woman all night never hurt no professional
baseball player. It's staying up all night looking for a woman that does him
in.” –Casey Stengel, manager.
“ If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and
saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even
considering if there is a man on base.” — Dave
Barry, author
“ What a hell of a league this is. I hit .387, .408, and
.395 the last three years and I ain't won nothin' yet!” --Shoeless
Joe Jackson, outfielder.
“I didn't mean to hit the umpire with the dirt, but I did
mean to hit that bastard in the stands.” — Babe
Ruth, pitcher, outfielder
“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.” –Reggie Jackson, outfielder
“The way to make coaches think you're in shape in spring training
is to get a tan.” — Whitey Ford, pitcher
“It ain't like football. You can't
make up no trick plays.” — Yogi Berra
“I never took the game home with me. I always left it in
some bar. — Bob Lemon, pitcher.
“If a horse won't eat it, I don't want to play on it. — Dick Allen, infielder on artificial turf
“Alan Sutton Sothoron pitched his initials off today. — Anonymous, St. Louis newspaper
Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a
bad break I got. Yet today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of
the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and I have never
received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. Look at these
grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just
to associate with them for even one day? Sure I'm lucky. Who wouldn't have
considered it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of
baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrows? To have spent six years with that
wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years
with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best
manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I'm lucky. When the New York
Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat and vice versa, sends you
a gift, that's something. When everybody down to the groundskeeper and those
boys in white coats remember you with trophies, that's something. When you have
a father and mother work all their lives so that you can have an education and
build your body, it's a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of
strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed, that's the finest I
know. I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth. And I might
have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for. – Lou Gehrig, July 4, 1939 at Yankee Stadium
on Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day.
Last Pitch: It ain't nothin' till I call it. — Bill Klem, umpire.
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