"You should enter a ballpark the way you enter a church." - Bill Lee
"I'd walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play baseball." - Pete Rose
"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
"I see great things in baseball. It's our game--the American game. It will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us." - Walt Whitman, poet
"This ain't a football game; we do this every day." - Earl Weaver
"I never appreciated some of the fellow I've been playing with for years. What I always thought were routine plays when I was in the lineup are really thrilling when you see them from off the field." - Lou Gehrig
"You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time." - Jim Bouton
"You can't sit on a lead and runs a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the goddamn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all." - Earl Weaver.
"I have discovered in 20 years of moving around a ballpark, that the knowledge of the game is usually in inverse proportion to the price of the seats." - Bill Veeck
"Since baseball time is measured only in outs, all you have to do is succeed utterly; keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time. You remain forever young." - Roger Angell.
How baseball is like a church: "Many attend but few understand." - Wes Westrum
"The trouble with baseball is by the time you learn how to play it, you can't play it anymore." - slugger Frank Howard.
"I picked a scab and rubbed some dirt in it so baseball would always be in my blood." - Rex Hudler after his final game.
"Our country is the only one in the world with a national anthem that the last two words are "Play ball!' - unattributed
"Baseball gives you every chance to be great. Then it puts every pressure on you to prove that you haven't got what it takes. It never takes away the chance and it never eases up on the pressure." - Joe Garagiola
"The pressure never lets up. Doesn't matter what you did yesterday. That's history. It's tomorrow that counts. So you worry all the time. It never ends. Lord, baseball is a worrying thing." - Stan Coveleski
"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." - Rogers Hornsby
"Because of baseball I smelled the rose of life. I wanted to meet interesting people, to travel, and to have nice clothes. Baseball allowed me to do all of those things and most important, during my time with the Crawfords, it allowed me to become a member of a brotherhood of friendship which will last forever." - Cool Papa Bell
"My god, it was like the Emerald City, and as you got closer, you'd pick up your pace, and you'd give your tickets and go charging inside." - Joe Flaherty on Ebbets Field
"Playing baseball for a living is like having a license to steal." - Pete Rose
"Baseball is America's family heirloom because it goes back so far...We respect the people of other generations in baseball perhaps more than we respect other generations in other fields in this country. We've been called a disposable society. But we don't dispose of Babe Ruth. We don't dispose of Walter Johnson. We treat them as though they were equals and contemporaries...That's a very special thing to pass on to children." - Thomas Boswell
"Nothing worries me about the future of baseball...When I read in the paper that escalating salaries or gambling are going to be the end of baseball, I love it because we've been hearing this, or reading about this for 130 years." - John Thorn
"Baseball must be a great game, because the owners haven't been able to kill it." - Bill Veeck
"I think there are only three things America will be know for 2000 years from now when they study this civilization: the Constitution, jazz music, and baseball. They're the three most beautifully designed things this culture has ever produced." - Gerald Early
"It ain't braggin' if you can back it up." - Dizzy Dean
"I'd rather be lucky than good." - Lefty Gomez
"If I knew I'd live this long, I woulda taken better care of myself." - Mickey Mantle
"Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it don't matter." - Satchel Paige
Satchel Paige's "How to Stay Young:"
1. Avoid fried foods which angry up the blood.
2. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.
3. Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.
4. Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society. The social ramble ain't restful.
5. Avoid running at all times.
6. Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.
"Luck is the residue of design." - Branch Rickey
"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives." - Jackie Robinson
"October doesn't care what your name is." - writer Mike Lupica
"Good is not good when better is expected." - L.A. announcer Vin Scully.
"Kids like me because they're taller than I am. I tell 'em people come in all shapes and sizes and because a guy is taller than me doesn't mean he's better than me. Your heart is what matters." - Kirby Puckett
"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." - Lefty Grove
On how he stayed relaxed in pressure situations: "I think about the cosmic snowball theory. A few million years from now the sun will burn out and lose its gravitational pull. The earth will turn into a giant snowball and be hurled through space. When that happens it won't matter if I get this guy out." - Bill Lee
"Ain't no sense in worrying about things you got control over, 'cause if you got control over them, ain't no sense worrying. And there ain't no sense worrying about things you got no control over, 'cause if you got no control over them, ain't no sense worrying." - Mickey Rivers
"Do the dull things right so the extraordinary things will not be required too often." - Earl Weaver
"The harder you throw it the less time you have to duck." - Doug Jones
"It's like most anything. If you want to be a loser, there's always a way to dwell on the negative. If you want to win, there's always a way to think positively." - Tony La Russa
"You have to have a catcher because if you don't you're likely to have a lot of passed balls." - Casey Stengel
"Just take the ball and throw it where you want to. Throw strikes. Home plate don't move." - Satchel Paige.
"Don't forget to swing hard, in case you hit the ball." - Woody Held
"No matter how much money you make, you can't buy a World Series ring." - Ozzie Guillen
"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts." - Earl Weaver.
"Don't save a pitcher for tomorrow. Tomorrow it may rain." - Leo Durocher
"Progress involves risks. You can't steal second with your foot on first." - Fred Wilcox
"I keep my eyes clear and I hit it where they ain't" - Wee Willie Keeler.
"I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me...All I ask is that you respect me as a person." - Jackie Robinson
"When there is no room for individuality in ballparks, then there will be no room for individualism in life" - Bill Veeck
"How to hit homeruns: I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball... I swing big, with everything I've got. I hit big or miss big. I like to live as big as I can." - Babe Ruth
Jerry Coleman:
"There's a deep fly ball... Winfield goes back, back...his head hits the wall ... it's rolling towards second base."
"Ozzie Smith just made a play that I have never seen before. And he's done it more times than anyone else."
"It's a base hit on the error by Roberts."
"Grubb goes back, back... He's under the warning track and makes the play."
"They throw Winfield out at second, but he's safe."
"Tito Fuentes is safe at second with a triple."
"Ozzie makes a leaping, diving stop, shovels to Fernando and everybody drops everything."
"Johnny Grubb slides into second with a standup double."
"And it's a long drive down the line to centerfield."
"Houston has its largest crowd of the night here this evening."
"The first pitch to Tucker Ashford is grounded into left field. No, wait a minute. It's ball one. Low and outside."
"At the end of six innings of play, it's Montreal 5, Expos 3."
"Mike Caldwell, the Padres' right-handed southpaw, will pitch tonight."
"If ever an error had "F" written on it, that grounder did."
"Gonzo leaps like a giraffe and grabs it."
"At the end, excitement maintained its hysteria."
I don't mean he missed him, but he just didn't get him when he put the tag on him."
Ralph Kiner:
"Kevin McReynolds stops at third and he scores."
"The Mets have gotten their leadoff batter on only once this inning."
"If Casey Stengel were alive today, he'd be spinning in his grave."
"The reason the Mets have played so well at Shea this year is they have the best home record in baseball."
"All of his saves have come in relief appearances"
"There's a long drive deep down the right-field line. Is it fair? Is it foul? It is!!! - Herb Score
"Jose Canseco leads off the 3rd inning with a grand slam." - John Gordan, Twins announcer
"The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! Bobby Thompson hits it into the lower deck of the left field stands. The Giants win the pennant and they're going crazy! They're going crazy1 I don't believe it! I don't believe it! I do not believe it!" - the normally unflappable Russ Hodges after Bobby Thompson's "shot heard 'round the world"
"The only thing dumber than a pitcher is two pitchers." - Ted Williams
"Why certainly I'd like to have that fellow who hits a home run every time at bat, who strikes out every opposing batter when he's pitching, who throws strikes to any base or the plate when he's playing outfield and who's always thinking about two innings ahead just what he'll do to baffle the other team. Any manager would want a guy like that playing for him. The only trouble is to get him to put down his cup of beer and come down out of the stands and do those things." -- former Pittsburgh manager Danny Murtaugh
"I knew it was going to be a bad season when on opening day during the national anthem one of my players turns to me and says, 'Every time I hear that song I have a bad game.'" - manager Jim Leyland
Asked about the Cubs' inability to win a World Series since 1908 or a pennant since 1945, manager Tom Treblehorn said: "Any team can have a bad century."
"Fans like home runs. And we have assembled a pitching staff to please our fans." - Washington Senators owner Clark Griffith.
"I would have jumped off a tall building. But the way I'm batting, I wouldn't have hit the ground." - Phil Garner
"A lot of things run through your head when you're going in to relieve in a tight spot. One of them was, "Should I spike myself?" - Lefty Grove
"I'm working on a new pitch. It's called a strike." - Jim Kern
"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
"Police have arrested the man who was pictured throwing snowballs at Giants Stadium. If convicted, he may face six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. If it turns out he was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, he'll be signed by the Yankees." - David Letterman
On the best thing about baseball: "There's no homework." - Dan Quisenberry
"Not true at all. Vaseline is manufactured right here in the United States." - on rumors that he used a "foreign substance" on the ball - Don Sutton
"I took the two most expensive aspirins in history." - Wally Pipp, replaced by Lou Gehrig
"Anything less would not have been worthy of me. Anything more would not have been possible." - Carl Yastrzemski
"Some plays just come out of me, just on instincts. I'll make a play and wonder, How did I do that?" - Roberto Alomar
"I don't know how anyone can put on a uniform and not care about winning." - Dave LaPoint
"I didn't come to New York to be a star. I brought my own star with me." - Reggie Jackson
"I'm not supposed to lose. When it happens, it's as if everybody's discovered a chink in my armor. So I've got to hurry back to the welding shop." - Seattle pitcher Randy Johnson
"Yeah, those children. Ignoramuses. And it seems like it's deteriorated even further since then, too. There' a sorry set of owners up there now. Most of 'em couldn't pour piss out of boot if the directions were on the heel." - former commissioner Happy Chandler on owners
"We've got a lot of new players on this team. But I don't think they're the right ones." - Ozzie Smith
"Above anything else, I hate to lose." - Jackie Robinson
"A pitcher has to find out if the hitter is timid. And if the hitter is timid, he has to remind the hitter he's timid." - Don Drysdale
"The pitcher has got only a ball. I've got a bat. So the percentage of weapons in my favor and I let the fellow with the ball do the fretting." - Hank Aaron
"Anybody with ability can play in the big leagues. But to be able to trick people year in and year out the way I did, I think that was a much greater feat."
"I didn't get a lot of awards as a player. But they did have a Bob Uecker Day Off for me once in Philly."
"In 1962 I was named Minor League Player of the Year. It was my second season in the Bigs.
"People don't know this but I helped the Cardinals win the pennant. I came down with hepatitis. The trainer injected me with it."
"The biggest thrill a ballplayer can have is when your son takes after you. That happened when my Bobby was in his championship Little League game. He really showed me something. Struck out three times. Made an error that lost the game. Parents were throwing things at our car and swearing at us as we drove off. Gosh, I was proud.
On how to catch a knuckleball: "Wait until it stops rolling and pick it up."
"Sporting goods companies pay me not to endorse their products."
"Baseball hasn't forgotten me. I go to a lot of Old-Timers games and I haven't lost a thing. I sit in the bullpen and let people throw things at me. Just like old times."
"A doctor told me to drink lemon juice after a hot bath. But I have never finished the bath."
"The highlight of my career? In '67 with St. Louis, I walked with the bases loaded to drive in the winning run in an inter squad game in spring training."
"Now there's three things you can do in a baseball game: You can win or you can lose or it can rain."
"All right. Everybody line up alphabetically according to your height."
"See that fella over there? He's 20 years old. In 10 years, he's got a chance to be a star. Now that fella over there, he's 20 years old, too. In 10 years he's got a chance to be 30."
"I would not admire hitting against Ryne Duren, because if he ever hit you in the head you might be in the past tense."
"You gotta lose 'em some of the time. When you do, lose 'em right."
"Good pitching will stop good hitting and vice-versa."
"You look up and down the bench and you have to say to yourself, "Can't anybody here play this game?"
"Without losers where would winners be?"
"Once someone gave me a picture and I wrote 'Do good in school.' I looked up and the guy was 78 years old
I made up my mind but I made it up both ways
You make your own luck. Some people have had bad luck all their lives.
"The secret to managing a club is to keep the five guys who hate you away from the five who are undecided."
"I didn't really say everything I said."
"Thank you for making this day necessary."
"You can't think and hit at the same time."
When asked what makes a good manager: "Good players."
"Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."
"Swing at the strikes."
"A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore."
On the 1969 Miracle Mets: "We were overwhelming underdogs."
"The other team could make trouble for us if they win."
On Don Larsen's 1956 perfect game in the World Series: "It's never happened in World Series history, and it hasn't happened since."
"It's deja vu all over again."
When asked what time it was: "You mean now?"
On why a game was lost: "We made too many wrong mistakes."
To Bud Selig about attendence problems: "If people don't want to come to the ballpark, how are you going to stop them?"
"If you ask me a question I don't know, I'm not going to answer."
"Slump? I ain't in no slump... I just ain't hitting."
"It was hard to have a conversation, there were too many people talking."
"90% of short puts don't go in."
"Why buy good luggage? You only use it when you travel."
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it."
"We're lost, but we're making good time."
"If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be."
If he found a million dollars: "I'd see if I could find the guy that lost it, and if he was poor I'd give it back."
"If I didn't wake up, I'd still be sleeping."
"If you can't imitate him, don't copy him."
Of left field at Yankee Stadium in fall: "It gets late early out there."
"90% of the game is mental. The other half is physical."
"Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't go to yours."
"Steve McQueen looks good in this movie, he must have made it before he died."
"I'm as red as a sheet."
On if Fatal Attraction had scared him: "Only the scary parts."
On if he wanted his pizza cut into 4 or 8 slices: "Four. I don't think I can eat eight."
"I wish I had an answer to that, because I'm tired of answering that quesion."
"Pair up in threes."
"Congragulations. I knew the record would stand until it was broken."
"Never answer an anonymous letter."
"You can observe a lot by watching."
"It's not too far, it just seems like it is."
"You've got to be careful if you don't know where you're going 'cause you might not get there."
On his wife Carmen: "We have a good time together even when we're not together."
"The future ain't what it used to be."
On his little league career: "If I had it to do all over again, I'd do it all over again."
"It ain't over 'til it's over."
"In baseball, you don't know nothing."
"It ain't the heat, it's the humility."
"I'm not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did."
Asked if the fans that ran naked on the field were men or women: "I don't know. They had bags over their heads."
"He hits from both sides of the plate. He's amphibious."
"Little League baseball is a good thing 'cause it keeps the parents off the streets and the kids out of the house."
"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 baseball for seventeen years and I have never recieved anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the hightlight 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 know Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrow? 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 psycology, 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 groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies, that's something. When you have a father and mother who 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. So I close in saying that I might have had a bad break, but I have an awful lot to live for."