Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Baseball is a lot like the Army, there aren't many individuals. About the only difference is that baseball players get to stay in nice hotels instead of barracks.
Coaches and ownership are just like the fans on the street. They can always do it better, and they would always have done it differently when it doesn't work out.
You can talk about teamwork on a baseball team, but I'll tell you, it takes teamwork when you have 2,900 men stationed on the U.S.S. Alabama in the South Pacific.
If I weren't playing baseball, I would be a radio or sports broadcaster. In college at South Carolina I did some stuff with the radio station and really liked it.
I've always been taught to play the game hard. Baseball is such a tough game, it really humbles you at times, you just have to try not to get too high or too low.
Anytime a pitcher hasn't faced a hitter, I feel the pitcher has the advantage. The more times the hitter sees somebody, the more the advantage goes to the hitter.
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.
My greatest thrill? That's easy. It came the day Mr. McGraw named his 20 all-time players. I'm ninth on that list and that is thrill enough to last me a lifetime.
If there was no intentional walks, the guy would just walk him anyway, unintentionally intentionally walk him. You see a lot more of that than what meets the eye.
It's not a fun process. There is no need for the team and a player to be on opposing sides a week or two before spring training. It's good to be on the same page.
I've been a Lakers fan since growing up in Oklahoma. My hometown's finally got the Thunder, which is really exciting, but I've still got to stick with the Lakers.
I don't know what my record's going to be. I can't dictate it. I mean, obviously I have to pitch well, but it also takes the guys at the plate to show up as well.
If I were playing today I'd do what Joe DiMaggio said. I'd go knock on the door at Yankee Stadium and when George Steinbrenner answered I'd say, 'Howdy, pardner.'
When I go to the plate, I think about putting the ball in play. It's important to get on base and get some walks, but I don't go to the plate thinking of walking.
I've never looked forward to a birthday like I'm looking forward to my new daughter's birthday, because two days after that is when I can apply for reinstatement.
When you play this game twenty years, go to bat ten-thousand times, and get three-thousand hits, do you know what that means? You've gone zero for seven-thousand.
When things go well, people like everything you do. When things don't go well, people look for 1,001 explanations, and they don't understand you're a human being.
You want to have expectations. I think it makes you work a little bit harder now, and it makes you want to prove to everyone that it wasn't just a one-year thing.
Used to be bats had thick handles and a big barrel. Then they found it's not the size of the bat that gets home runs - it's the speed with which you can swing it.
These vessels are out of sight, out of mind. They are exempt from minimum-wage requirements, from Coast Guard inspections, OSHA regulations and other safety laws.
I would like to be a great artist. I would quit pitching if I could paint like Monet or Rousseau. But I cant. What I can do is pitch, and I can do that very well.
Lou Brock, along with Maury Wills, are probably the two players most responsible for the biggest change in the game over the last fifteen years - the stolen base.
I feel like I should go out there and throw a shutout every time I pitch. If we score one [run] and I give up two, then I didn't do my job as far as I'm concerned.
I want to be part of Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame, but I don't want to be part of the kind of Hall of Fame that's based on voters' beliefs and assumptions.
When you get moved around, it can be jarring, but it helps to fine-tune your focus in the middle of the season, when other guys are getting a little lackadaisical.
You don't get a chance to go to the playoffs and World Series very often, but to be able to experience it with the people you love most in the world is really fun.
I wanted to create jobs and create something that had a very longstanding world-changing effect. We were close. We were close to getting there. It just fell apart.
I can't recall too much about pitching, but I do remember that I was anxious to get it over with. I just wanted to get that first game over with and go from there.
When I play videogames I'm trying to go deep every pitch. I'm definitely not going to try to do that in real life. In the (video)game I'm trying to leave the yard.
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.
I would like people not to think in terms of the 755 home runs I hit but think in terms of what I've accomplished off the field and some of the things I stood for.
Some people enjoy taking a light stroll in the morning and that gives them relief and that sort of feeling. That is what I gain by practicing, by swinging the bat.
There are really only two options - you can feel things, or you can shut down. But, once you decide to feel things, you don't get to pick and choose what you feel.
My manager said it would more effective against left-handed hitters. It seemed to me that was impossible to do without the high leg kick, which I started that day.
I'm a power guy. Good fastball. A knuckle curve, which I can throw for strikes. A changeup which sinks down and away from lefties and I can also throw for strikes.
Obama's a great speaker. Because of his speaking ability and his appearance, a lot of guys got on board. Being the first African American, a lot guys got on board.
Anybody can be Prince Charming one day a year, with the dinner and the flowers and all that. But you know what impresses me? When a guy can do that NO days a year.
On every commercial flight, the traveler is told, "Your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device". The question is, why doesn't the plane just become a boat?
Go light on the vices, such as carrying on in society. The social life ain't restful. Avoid running at all times. Don't look back. Something may be gaining on you.
I used to feel so bad before I got to the clubhouse, I didn't know what to do. But when I put that ballsuit on, I don't know where I got the spark to save my life.
I threw so hard (after striking out Art Fletcher & Doc Crandall in the 9th inning of Game 1 of the 1912 World Series) I thought my arm would fly right off my body.
The one unbreakable rule about hitting is this: if a batter hits well with his own particular stance and swing, think twice - or more - before suggesting a change.
I'm trying to keep a good spin on it...But at some point you have to look at a guy like me and ask, 'How effective can I be if I'm not playing on a regular basis?'
It's (baseball) on the radio and in the newspapers every day, the only game you can follow on that basis. From whatever arm's length you choose, it's always there.
I would like to be a great artist. I would quit pitching if I could paint like Monet or Rousseau. But I can't. What I can do is pitch, and I can do that very well.
A swing is like a car. You've got the fan belt, carburetor, pistons, spark plugs, fuel pump. If any part isn't working, the car doesn't run. Same way with hitting.
At ten I was playing against 18-year-old guys. At 15 I was playing professional ball with the Birmingham Black Barons, so I really came very quickly in all sports.
I went over a year without playing baseball. At 39, not playing for a year, a year and a half, there were a lot of nights I was saying, 'This is going to be tough.'
I had been playing for a while, and I asked Louisville Slugger to send me a dozen flame treated bats. But when I got it, I realized they had sent me a box of ashes.
Being a Christian doesn't mean that our struggles are necessarily different from those of non-Christians; it's just that our solution to the struggles is different.