Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Until you're the person that other people fall back on, until you're the one that's leaned on, not the person doing the leaning, you're not an adult.
The only thing I'd ever wanted in my life was to be a major-league ballplayer, but I had to admit to myself that I wasn't good enough. It broke my heart.
Playing baseball is fun. If I could play, I'd never retire. But managing is work. It's constant decisions of whose feelings you want to hurt all the time.
Judging ballplayers and turning in reports, giving my opinion of who will get to the big leagues and who will not... I think my baseball judgment was really good.
The guy who says, 'I love the challenge of managing,' is one step from being out of a job. I don't welcome any challenge. I'd rather have nine guys named Robinson.
Most of the umpires, it's amazing: 98 percent of them will not hold a grudge. I always felt a couple of them did. I never wanted to argue with an umpire in my life.
When you play for one run, that's usually all you get. I have nothing against the bunt in its place, but most of the time, that place is in the bottom of a long-forgotten closet.
You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and five the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all.
A manager has to convince his hitters that they have to get on base for the next guy and that no player can do it by himself. Sometimes that isn't easy. In the playoffs, you can get into trouble because everybody wants to be a hero.
The worst thing about being on the road is all you want to do when you get home is to stay home, but as soon as you get back, all the wife wants to do is go out because she's been stuck home all the time you've been stuck on the road.
I used to be a pretty good hit-and-run man when I played in the minors. I handled the bat well and could hit the ball to the right side of the infield. Nevertheless, I know that you often give the opposition an out on the hit-and-run play.
People always make a lot about how I don't carry grudges. That's my religious upbringing. I went nine years without missing Sunday school. Lutheran. I can't live with hatred inside of me. That's what I learned. I ain't scared of dying, either.
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.
You must remember that anyone under 30 - especially a ballplayer - is an adolescent. I never got close to being an adult until I was 32. Even though I was married and had a son at 20, I was a kid at 32, living at home with my parents. Sure, I was a manager then. That doesn't mean you're grown up.
Team speed for Christ's sake. You got bleeping' bleep bleep little fleas on the bleeping' bases getting picked off, trying to steal, getting thrown out, taking runs away from you. You get some big bleep bleepers that can hit the bleeping ball out of ballpark and you can't make any bleep bleeping mistakes.
The Chinese tell time by 'The Year of the Horse' or 'The Year of the Dragon.' I tell time by 'The Year of the Back' and 'The Year of the Elbow.' This year it's 'The Year of the Ulnar Nerve.' Someone once asked me if I had any physical incapacities of my own. 'Sure I do,' I said. 'One big one - Jim Palmer.'
What else does a manager do but push buttons? He doesn't hit, he doesn't run, he doesn't throw, and he doesn't catch the ball. A manager has twenty-five players, or twenty-five buttons, and he selects which one he'll use, or push, that day. The manager who presses the right buttons most often is the one who wins the most games.
If an umpire misses a called third strike and the other side ends up scoring because of it, I'm not going to forget it. If there are runners on second and third and two out, and if the umpire has just given the hitter an extra strike and the next pitch goes into the hole and both runs score, I've got to say something to the guy.
There ain't no genius here. Strategy in baseball is overrated. People say, 'That Weaver, he plays for the long ball too much.' You bet I do. Hit 'em out. Then I got no worry about somebody lousing up a bunt, I got no worry about the hit and run - and that's really overrated - I got no worry about base-running errors. And I can't screw it up myself.