Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When I was a little-leaguer, I was sort of famous for stealing bases - and it started only because my mom wanted to be sure where I was in the afternoons. Mom always used to say, "If you don't come home dirty, you didn't play a baseball game." So I always tried to get in a situation where I had to slide so that I could go home dirty.
I started collecting baseball cards and basketball cards when I was younger. I have a CD collection that turned into a DVD collection, and I have a Jordan shoe collection. And I don't drink, but I have a wine collection. I just started a sweatshirt collection. Every city that I'm in, I buy a sweatshirt. It's just something that I do.
He's like a baseball team owner who also wants to coach, but who also attracts fans, like David Duke, and now anti-semi Louis Farrakhan who also gave Donald Trump odd praise. Now maybe this is not Trump's fault, but he is truly a unifier getting white and black racist leaders to agree on one thing - him. Not to mention the democrats.
The Cubs, we built one of best farm systems - I think for a while there, it was the best farm system in baseball. And that was great. It got a lot of attention. But we didn't want the credit for the farm system. What we wanted was to see if we could do the tricky part, which was turn a lauded farm system into a World Series champion.
I think my confidence and competitiveness - that will - comes from my mother. I always knew my mom loved me, and she always made me feel like I was - I don't want to say 'special' - but that I was capable of doing things. Before I ever shot a basketball or before I ever threw a baseball, I had confidence, and that was from my mother.
Baseball, in my opinion, would be a lot better if you could just make the same salary as everybody else in the world, and you don't deal with any of the other stuff. But that's not how it is. The main thing is I want to pitch against the best players in the world, and you can't do that playing in a pickup baseball league in your town.
All that proves is that most of the world is too poor to build bowling alleys, golf courses, tennis courts and baseball fields. There's hundreds of millions of poor people out there who still ain't got indoor plumbing, but that don't mean there's something great about an outhouse. Soccer is boring. I've never seen a more boring sport.
Last year was the fourth or fifth attempt to get fall launched till 'American Idol' comes in January. To be honest, the reality programming we had on last year was considered filler until we could get to the good stuff. It was meant to hopefully get us to January andor to November. To get past baseball. But (it) didn't work very well.
Want to play baseball?’” she asked. Shane’s eyes opened, and he stopped stroking her hair. “What?’” “First base,’” she said. “You’re already there.’” “I’m not running the bases.’” “Well, you could at least steal second.’” “Jeez, Claire. I used to distract myself with sports stats at times like these, but now you’ve gone and ruined it.
Jimmy Carter was - he still - he remains to this day America's most ex of ex-presidents. You just can't believe that we elected this doofus. He was a bright enough guy and sort of well-meaning. But he was about as prepared to be president of the United States as your goofy old uncle, you know, the one that memorises baseball statistics.
Hold a baseball in your hand ... Feel the ball, turn it over in your hand; hold it across the seam or the other way, with the seam just to the side of your middle finger. Speculation stirs. You want to get outdoors and throw this spare and sensual object to somebody or, at the very least, watch somebody else throw it. The game has begun.
I really want to have a possibility of going into the Hall of Fame one day. I think that's huge with a lot of baseball writers and old school guys. Of course, that's not the main goal - the main goal is winning a World Series. Hall of Fame is so far away. It's just something I've always thought about doing. I want to be as clean as I can.
Baseball cannot be learned as a trade. It begins with the sport of the schoolboy, and though it may end in the professional, I am sure there is not a single one of these who learned the game with the expectation of making it a business. There have been years in the life of each during which he must have ate and drank and dreamed baseball.
A lot of people think that you have to specialize in one sport from an early age in order to turn pro. Most of my teammates played a lot of different sports when we were kids. I liked to golf, water ski and play baseball. That helped me develop other aspects of my game and made me WANT to be on the ice even more once hockey season started.
Baseball is a lot like the ivy-covered wall of Wrigley Field--it gives off a great appearance, but when you run into it, you discover the bricks underneath. At times, it seems that we're dealing with a group of men who aren't much different than others we've all run into over the years, except they wear neckties instead of robes and hoods.
Today's baseball players are walking conglomerates. They have fantastic salaries, multiple investments, but we had one thing they don't have today, the train ride. We didn't always like it, but those rides kept us close as a team and as friends. Something you can't get on a two hour plane ride that used to take you fifteen hours on a train.
I struck out with two men on base. I was so angry, so frustrated, I turned and without even thinking about it, snapped my bat over my thigh. The bat split right in half. Afterward, reporters asked me if it was the first time I'd ever broken a bat over my thigh. "I broke an aluminum bat over my knee in college," I said. (I was just kidding).
Someone wanted me to write a profile for ESPN about the commissioner of baseball, and I said, "He's just some suit! Some Republican. No!" I mean if you want me to write about baseball, boxing or football, I'll write about those things because I watch them, I think about them a lot and I like them. But I don't want to write about Barry Bonds.
Stealing home is one of the most sensational plays in baseball. If the run thus scored is the winning tally, the play is, of course, all the more thrilling. It is a play that requires a lot of quick thinking to bring about a successful completion. The chap who has slow moving feet and a slower moving brain had better never try to steal home.
In 2005, a man diagnosed with multiple myeloma asked me if he would be alive to watch his daughter graduate from high school in a few months. In 2009, bound to a wheelchair, he watched his daughter graduate from college. The wheelchair had nothing to do with his cancer. The man had fallen down while coaching his youngest son's baseball team.
The worst team in baseball's history won only 55 games. The best team ever won 110 out of 160, so you're virtually guaranteed to win 1/3 of the time and lose 1/3 of the time. The difference is the 1/3 in the middle. You don't know what bucket the game you're playing falls into, so if you're smart, you'll fight like everything for all of them.
I was all-state in four sports in New Jersey, but sometimes I couldn't get served at a restaurant two blocks from my high school. There were no job opportunities then... the only thing a black youth could aspire to be was a bellboy or a pullman or an elevator operator, or, maybe, a teacher. There was a time when all we had was black baseball.
Kid says to me, "You play baseball? What position? Left out?" and gets a big laugh from the rest of the class. Kid is only one person out of 6.792 billion humans on this planet. This planet is only one-eighth of the solar system, whose sun is one of two billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Put it that way, the comment loses it's importance.
I very much related to the idea of sexual identity and how it doesn't have to be black and white. When I first came out, there would be butch people in baseball caps, and that wasn't me, and then there were girls in heels and dresses, and that didn't feel like that was me either. But after a while I learned there's a lot of ground in between.
Baseball is meant to be fun, and not all the solemn money-men in fur-collared greatcoats, not all the scruffy media cameramen and sour-faced reporters that crowd around the dugouts can quite smother the exhilarating spaciousness and grace of this impudently relaxed sport, a game of innumerable potential redemptions and curious disappointments.
It's a Little Leaguers game that major leaguers play extraordinarily well, a game that excites us throughout adulthood. The crack of the bat and the scent of the horsehide on leather bring back our own memories that have been washed away with the sweat and tears of summers long gone...even as the setting sun pushes the shadows past home plate.
Yeah, I miss it. You don't just break off a friendship you've had with a sport, and with all those you've met all over the country. We've got some friends, some very close friends, and you just sit back and think how fortunate you were having a career like that. And, actually, there's nothing in the game of baseball that hasn't happened to me.
Years ago, while I was watching a baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Texas Rangers, I remember staring in awe at Cal Ripken. I realized during this game that 'you don't have to be flashy' or have 'power numbers' to be great. It's about the simple things that are the hard things. It's about leadership, work ethic and commitment.
If someone wants to lead a double life, they will find a way to do it. And they can promise you things until your nerves unfold and you can finally put up your feet. But it can all be a lie. There are no guarantees, even when people mean what they say at the time. People change their minds. People die. And the hurt is as real as a baseball bat.
I believe in the Church of Baseball. I've tried all the major religions and most of the minor ones. I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I learned that, I gave Jesus a chance.
Owners, the way they blackballed me from baseball, the way they used me, in a sense, and then the way they wanted to send a signal to the other players, saying, you know, we're going to get Jose Canseco out of the game. This is a cue or a message for you other guys to stop using steroids because the owners lost total control of the steroid use.
The hats of all eras thrill me. People don't wear them anymore. So when you see an outfit completed by a hat (that's for men too) it's thrilling. Especially if it's a Cloche from the 20's or a "Peter Pan" from the 30's, a Homburg from the 50's, or a Stingy Brim from the 60's. It's time stamping. Today everybody just wants to wear a baseball cap!
The fact that guys adjusted really quickly to the big leagues, developed really quickly, faced adversity under the brightest spotlights, played great baseball, overcame so much, overcame centuries worth of issues and won a World Series, I guess it doesn't necessarily mean we're still not just prone to the laws of nature and reality and baseball.
There is really a je ne sais quoi about turkey cooking - the air of festivity, the family squabbles, the constant basting - that does not apply to the turkey breast, which is, really, a convenience of food... A turkey without seasonal angst is like a baseball game without a national anthem, a winter without snow, a birthday party without candles.
What I got out of baseball is what I have today, and I've got to look at that. I still see some of my friends that never made it past Triple-A. I made that last big step. I was lucky. I'm in love with my land. I got it all from playing ball. It gives me prestige. Someone says, 'What you got?' I say, 'One hundred and twenty-one acres of nice land.'
I'm not as anti-sports as I've led people to believe - I've been to a Giants game. I've been to Giants Stadium and I've watched games. I've watched lots of them, you know? I don't really pretend to know what's going on, but I've been immersed in the excitement of watching sports, particularly football. I like baseball, probably more than football.
When I was younger, I'd always forget stuff. I think there was probably 4-5 times where we'd drive 30 minutes to a town for the baseball tournament, and all of a sudden, I'd get to the field and look in my bag, and I didn't have my cleats. So my dad had to race all the way home to get my cleats and get back before the game started so I could play.
My idea of Heaven has nothing to do with fluffy clouds or angels. In my Heaven there's butter pecan ice cream and swimming pools and baseball games. The Brooklyn Dodgers always win, and I have the best seat in the house, right behind the Dodger's dugout. That's the only advantage that I can see about being dead: You get the best seat in the house.
If I had admitted my guilt, it would have been the same as putting my head on the chopping block - lifetime ban. Death penalty. I spent my entire life on the baseball fields of America, and I was not going to give up my profession without first seeing some hard evidence ... right or wrong, the punishment didn't fit the crime, so I denied the crime.
For my books of nonfiction I write about subjects I find fascinating. I've been a Yankees and a Lou Gehrig fan for decades, so I wrote 'Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man.' It's more the story of his great courage than of his baseball playing. Children face all sorts of challenges, and it's my hope that some will be inspired by the courage of Lou Gehrig.
In an unhealthy way, I found a lot of validity in having always been a very good athlete, a very good baseball player, and I've since grown out of that place into a different perspective and learned how to live differently, thankfully, where baseball is certainly something that's very important to me. It's not who I am, though. It's just what I do.
I have observed that, generally speaking, network sports announcers did not tend to live to a ripe old age. On the other hand, I had noticed that baseball announcers seemed to go right on forever. Bob Elson has been calling balls and strikes since the beginning of time. Harry Caray must have started with Abner Doubleday, and was still going strong.
It is the best of all games for me. It frequently escapes from the pattern of sport and assumes the form of a virile ballet. It is purer than any dance because the actions of the players are not governed by music or crowded into a formula by a director. The movement is natural and unrehearsed and controlled only by the unexpected flight of the ball.
Major League Baseball has created a Pete Rose purgatory, and that's where he is. And that's where he's always going to be. It's unfortunate that the commissioner's office has decided to allow that to be the reality. I don't think Pete would mind if they said 'No' to Pete. Pete wants them to go one way or the other and get him out of the void he's in.
There was buried in Ruth humanitarianism beyond belief, an intelligence he was never given credit for, a childish desire to be over-virile, living up to credits given his home-run power - and yet a need for intimate affection and respect, and a feverish desire to play baseball, perform, act and live a life he didn't and couldn't take time to understand.
I remember growing up, getting the Colorado Springs Sun in the morning and the Denver Post in the afternoon, and my dad just inhaling both of them, and me waiting to get the sports page from him. I fell in love with the craft. I remember being 9 years old and playing baseball in the backyard and coming in and writing little newspaper articles for my dad.
Of all the young men in America only a few hundred can get into major league baseball, and of these only a handful in a decade can get into the Hall of Fame. So it goes in all human activity. .. Some become multimillionaires and chairmen of the board, and some of us must be content to play baseball at company picnics or manage a credit union without pay.
I returned to the white House after midnight more depressed than ever before. I had long since arranged to attend the World Series in Philadelphia the next day. Although I like baseball, I kept this engagement only because I felt that my presence at a sporting event might be a gesture of reassurance to a country suffering from a severe attack of 'jitters.'
Baseball is the most perfect of games, solid, true, pure and precious as diamonds. If only life were so simple. Within the baselines anything can happen. Tides can reverse; oceans can open. That's why they say, "the game is never over until the last man is out." Colors can change, lives can alter, anything is possible in this gentle, flawless, loving game.
By the time I got to high school, I didn't play anything but baseball because I was on a mission. I really wanted to get a scholarship. I really wanted to focus all my time and efforts on baseball. When I got up to Florida State, God spoke to me very clearly and called me out of that and called me into music, which up until that point had just been a hobby.