Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm not devastated over a baseball game. If somebody came to me and said, 'Your wife is terminally ill.' Or, if my kids and wife get on a plane and I got a call that said, 'Something happened with the plane,' that's devastating.
I don't care what you do - baseball or politics - George W. Bush is always going to be compared to his father. I just want it to be an easy answer in 50 years - Who was the better player, me, or my kids? I want it to be my kids.
Anybody involved in sports in Missouri knows it's a great sports state. It is a great sports state, particularly in basketball and baseball. Particularly. Not to demean football, but it's a baseball state and a basketball state.
The real beauty of it - key to my life was playing key chords on a banjo. For somebody else it may be a golf club that mom and dad put in their hands or a baseball or ballet lessons. Real gift to give to me and put it in writing.
You just make the right baseball decision. You don't necessarily worry about somebody's feelings or anything like that. You make the right baseball decision for the team first and then for the player's development as importantly.
Despite the situation in Cuba, I had a chance to play on the national team; and compared to other baseball players and other people in Cuba, I had the opportunity to live at a level that was not very high class but in the middle.
And my father didn't have money for me to go to college. And at that particular time they didn't have black quarterbacks, and I don't think I could have made it in basketball, because I was only 5' 11". So I just picked baseball.
Sure, it's nice to win. But there's only one thing that's important to me and that's the money we're going to get, win or lose. . . . I don't love baseball, I like it. And to me, baseball means money, and that's all I care about.
It's rewarding riding into the sunset. What better way to go? My teammates carried me off the field - it doesn't get any better than that. Now it's time to be a dad. To be as successful at that as I was at baseball would be nice.
Baseball is like cricket, and I grew up in a country where they had cricket. So I understand cricket, soccer and basketball. I played basketball at the club level and a little bit in college, so thats why Im a basketball fanatic.
I became a soldier, not because I had a military vocation initially, but because it was the only way that that young, poor-class child from the provinces could go to the center of the country: through baseball, which was my dream.
New York City is the capital for Baseball, not just for the pros, but also for the kids throughout the city, as well. No matter who you root for, the Borough Cup is going to make every kid and community that participates a winner.
I'm not a great deductive thinker, but I will admit to having competence in a very wide range of things - not being afraid to try to write about baseball, choral music and dinosaurs in the same week and see connections among them.
I went to school, but nobody really noticed me. I just came to school, didn't dress up or anything - just a ghost. I just worked out and went out to the field and went the baseball route. That's how I've always been my whole life.
In the field of outdoor sports, the American boy is easily capable of devising his own amusements, and until some proof is adduced that baseball is not his invention, I protest against this systematic effort to rob him of his dues.
In an individual sport, yes, you have to win titles. Baseball's different. But basketball, hockey? One person can control the tempo of a game, can completely alter the momentum of a series. There's a lot of great individual talent.
It's such a beautiful sport, with no politics involved, no color, no class. Only as a youngster can you play and as a pro can you win. The game has kept me young, involved and excited and for me to be up here with gems of baseball.
I'm from Boston, and in Boston, you are born with a baseball bat in your hand. And actually, most of the bats in Massachusetts are used off the field instead of on the field, and we all had baseball bats in our cars in high school.
"And my father didn't have money for me to go to college. And at that particular time they didn't have black quarterbacks, and I don't think I could have made it in basketball, because I was only 5′ 11". So I just picked baseball."
During the season I really don't do anything else but play baseball. I've never wanted to get away from baseball for a break. Why would I want to get away from it? I love the game. I always have. There's nothing else I'd rather do.
Baseball is like cricket, and I grew up in a country where they had cricket. So I understand cricket, soccer and basketball. I played basketball at the club level and a little bit in college, so that's why I'm a basketball fanatic.
A kid might help another kid who fell into a river, and a kid might help another kid search for a lost baseball, but there isn't a kid I've met who will help another kid out of a humiliating situation. We just aren't built that way.
I love being in a city that's playing October baseball, where you can just feel everyone captivated by the ball club, everyone walking around tired from staying up late, prioritizing baseball above all else. It's a great phenomenon.
Most of what I learned about baseball came from great coaches, beginning with my father, then Bob [Buchelle], when I`d made it into the seated row of Little League in [Dorchester], then Dan Burke, [John Balfe], the great Henry Lane.
I played no sports well. Because I was a boy in the United States Of America, I was forced into Little League and played horrible Little League baseball, and played football and basketball in school situations where I was forced to.
Pro sports are a tough business--whether you're in baseball, football, or something else. But when you're running around the bases after hitting a home run or jumping up and down after a touchdown, a little boy comes to the surface.
There is no chance of night baseball ever being popular in the bigger cities. People there are educated to see the best there is and will stand for only the best. High-class baseball cannot be played at night under artificial light.
Ty Cobb was still fighting the Civil War, and as far as he was concerned, we were all damn Yankees. But who knows, if he hadn't had that terrible persecution complex, he never would have been about the best ballplayer who ever lived.
If all of us who love baseball and are doing our jobs, then those who get the game from us will be as proud to be a part of it as we were. And we are. This game is a gift, and I am humbled, very humbled, to accept its greatest honor.
It was always fun for me, I loved baseball so darn much. By the hours I practiced, you'd have to say I was working a lot of hours, but it was pretty near tireless fun for me. I'd rather swing a bat than do anything else in the world.
The strain on Roger (Maris) was unbelievable. After I dropped out the reporters only had one guy to go to. They surrounded him everywhere he went. He had big clumps of hair falling out. That he went ahead and did it was unbelievable.
In America, we have three major sports - baseball, football and basketball. They get the most coverage. Then there's things like golf which mop up most of what is left. But track and field? We are way at the bottom of the totem pole.
I'm a very lucky guy. I had so many people help me over the years that I never had many problems. If I had a problem, I could sit down with someone and they would explain the problem to me, and the problem become like a baseball game
The seductiveness of baseball is that almost everyone with an abiding interest in it knows exactly how it should be played. And secretly believes that he could do it, if only God had seen fit to make him just a little bit less clumsy.
I'm a very lucky guy. I had so many people help me over the years that I never had many problems. If I had a problem, I could sit down with someone and they would explain the problem to me, and the problem become like a baseball game.
All I can say is I've been reading the lips of bleeped-out words, angry baseball players, and stoned-out rock stars on awards shows for years and it's been hilarious. Everyone is always asking me what the bleeped-out parts are saying.
I played Little League baseball, but I also played basketball. Basketball was my primary sport. When you play basketball seriously, a lot of times, through the summer season, you continue playing. So that replaced me playing baseball.
But baseball bounced back in the next decade to reclaim its place as the national pastime: new heroes, spirited competition, and booming prosperity gave birth to dreams of expansion, both within the major leagues and around the world.
I thought some of the stories were neat; I liked some of the liturgy and some of the songs. If you're a writer you have some inclination to pay attention. I didn't just tune it out and think about baseball. So, it had an effect on me.
I had a lot of fun playing football and basketball, but deep down, the chess match or cat-and-mouse game between the pitcher and batter in baseball really drew me in. It's a thinking man's game, and for me, nothing can compare to that.
I'm a man of some intelligence. I've had some education, passed the bar, practiced law. I've been a teacher and I deal with men of substance, statesman, business leaders, the clergy... So why do I spend my time arguing with Dizzy Dean?
Five World Series rings, 3000-plus hits, the fame, the fortune and playing for the second most historic franchise in baseball... These are just some of the reasons kids would always say they want to grow up to be just like Derek Jeter.
I love baseball, I really do. I always told my Dad, I'm not gonna make it working... I like to play ball too much. Which I did. I played hard. You gotta work at this game. You really do. And its fun doing it if you do it the right way.
The Golf Hall of Fame is full of players with unusual looking swings. Some of the prettiest swings you've ever seen in your life are made on the far end of the public driving range by guys who couldn't break an egg with a baseball bat.
One time I snuck a ball on with me and when I went to winding up, I threw one of them balls to first and one to second. I was so smooth I picked off both runners and fanned the batter without that ump or the other team even knowing it.
Doing voiceover, they bring you in, you're wearing jeans, you haven't shaved, you're wearing a baseball cap, and you go in, do it, make a lot of money and go home. It's fun. I enjoy doing it very much. So that's been really fun for me.
Even though my dad was a manager in the minor leagues, I still traveled around with him and saw it from the field out. Now, as an owner, you're kind of looking from the whole baseball activity from outside in, from a fan's perspective.
I wanted to definitely be a musician or a good preacher or a heck of a baseball player. I couldn't play ball too good - I hurt my finger, and I stopped that. I couldn't preach, and well, all I had left was getting into the music thing.
My baseball career ended in college.I played on the freshman team, but was becoming more drawn to intellectualism than athleticism, and so I gave up baseball, and it was perfect timing because baseball was going to give up me very soon.
That's baseball, and it's my game. Y' know, you take your worries to the game, and you leave 'em there. You yell like crazy for your guys. It's good for your lungs, gives you a lift, and nobody calls the cops. Pretty girls, lots of 'em.