Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm pretty crazy about the Yankees. When I can't actually watch a game, I TiVo it. I am also a die-hard Dallas Cowboys fan. I don't tell many people that because I will get made fun on because I'm from New Jersey!
What kind of influence did my parents have on my life? Well, they had the most influence. These are the people who are closest to me. My parents are very positive people. They've been supportive. They're always there.
The history of [Mariano] Rivera is pretty unbelievable. And even if you're not a Yankee or a baseball fan, you have to appreciate the tradition. He gets respect from Boston fans and Phillies fans, and I love tradition.
In Manhasset you were either Yankees or Mets, rich or poor, sober or drunk...You were 'Gaelic' or 'garlic," as one schoolmate told me, and I couldn't admit, to him or myself, that I had both Irish and Italian ancestors.
I remember when I got a call and was told I was traded [to the Yankees in 1974], I actually cried because I liked Kansas City. But coming to the Yankees was the best thing that ever happened to me in my baseball career.
Being in Silicon Valley is like playing for the Yankees. You get knocked around more than anywhere else, the glare of the media spotlight is more brutal, and the expectations are higher than they'd be in any other city.
I'm a little too belligerent. I cuss and swear at people. I yell at umpires and maybe I'm a little to tough at home sometimes. I don't sign as many autographs as I should and I haven't always been that good with writers.
A catcher must want to catch. He must make up his mind that it isn't the terrible job it is painted, and that he isn't going to say every day, 'Why, oh why with so many other positions in baseball did I take up this one.'
My favorite is when you go to Afghanistan and you meet the special forces guys, and they look like these heavily armed surfers. These guys are the best. You see guys dressed as full Afghans, but then wearing a Yankees hat.
The first intimation I had that the Yankees were for sale was through an item to that effect in the newspapers. The idea instantly occurred to me that here was a prospect to become interested in a major-league club at home.
There's nobody on my ball club that doesn't go from first to third on a base hit, or from second to home. Every time you steal a base, you're taking a gamble on getting thrown out, and taking the bat out of the hitter's hand.
I would say I was jock. I went to Sierra College. I was a big baseball player. Getting into the MLB was my dream - to become a left-handed pitcher for the Yankees. That's what I was hoping, but life kind of went the other way.
There is a feeling when you are in Yankee Stadium that it is a very sacred ground you are walking on and you know you had the same feelings that other great players have had in other eras that played right there on that field.
A lot of pitchers today are afraid of the ball. Warren Spahn pinch-hit for me when I was a rookie. He hit a sacrifice fly. I couldn't argue. I was 20 years old and just happy to be in the big leagues. And Spahnnie was a good hitter.
I belong a Yankee. I'm really happy that I got the chance to sign a good contract, and really happy that I got the chance to stay with the Yankees. Going elsewhere, I was going to hear the offers, but the Yankees made it really tough.
Tired of all her efforts at Tara, Scarlett wishes to escape too: "I do want to escape too! I'm so very tired of it all!. . . The South is dead, it's dead, the Yankees and the carpetbaggers have got it and there's nothing left for us."
There's no way I can go play for the Yankees, but I know they're going to come after me hard. It's definitely not the most important thing to go out there for the top dollar, which the Yankees are going to offer me. It's not what I need.
Everyone keeps me telling me how great a knee replacement is. Whitey Ford said it was great and so did Ralph Branca. If I had one of those, I don't know that I would retire. But if I left for a month or more, who's going to want me back?
Now this is over thirty years later and the guy said he was that cab driver. He apologized and he was serious. I felt awful. He might have been spending his whole life thinking he had jinxed me, but I told him he hadn't. My number was up.
Any ballplayers that played for me on either the Cardinals or the Yankees could come to me if he were in need and I would give him a helping hand. I made only two exceptions, Carl Mays and Joe Bush. If they were in a gutter, I'd kick them.
It was a crazy series, 1960. The Yankees were predicted to beat us four straight. And on paper, we couldn't match them because they had better players. But we also had twenty-five guys that wanted to win, and we did everything we could to win.
There are things about Joe Torre, if I wanted to come out and say, would show how cold and calculated he really is... Joe Torre is for Joe Torre. ... The graveyard of Yankees coaches is loaded with bones of coaches Joe Torre did nothing about.
I never went through a period were I wanted to be a doctor, a cop or even a rock star. All I wanted to do was play short stop for the Yankees from the time I was about 5. Then I turned 15 and realized how silly that was and just gave up on it.
New England clam chowder, made as it should be, is a dish to preach about, to chant praises and sing hymns and burn incense before. [...] It is as American as the Stars and Stripes, as patriotic as the national Anthem. It is Yankee Doodle in a kettle.
I've been a Danish prince, a Texas slave-dealer, an Arab sheik, a Cheyenne Dog Soldier, and a Yankee navy lieutenant in my time, among other things, and none of 'em was as hard to sustain as my lifetime's impersonation of a British officer and gentleman.
I have a lot of regrets about what I've done. If I had to do it over again, I never would have left the Mets. I'm very thankful for all that Mr. (George) Steinbrenner did for me when I was with the Yankees, but I wish I had stayed in New York with the Mets.
Maybe we've been brainwashed by 130 years of Yankee history, but Southern identity now has more to do with food, accents, manners, music than the Confederate past. It's something that's open to both races, a variety of ethnic groups and people who move here.
My first and foremost goal when I joined the Yankees was to win the world championship. Certainly it's been a long road and very difficult journey. But I'm just happy that after all these years we were able to win and reach the goal that I had come here for.
To wind up in Cooperstown is surreal for me. To go into the Hall of Fame is one thing. When you think of all the other Yankees that are in here, it's pretty special. This is just a shrine. To visit it, much less be inducted, it's still sort of unbelievable to me.
Owen Meany believed that “coincidence” was a stupid, shallow refuge sought by stupid, shallow people who were unable to accept the fact that their lives were shaped by a terrifying and awesome design – more powerful and unstoppable than the Yankee Flyer. (a train)
I wish there was a bar I could send opposing teams to and get them hammered or something - I could tell my buddies in New York to leave their places open or something. Playing for the Yankees, guys come at you extremely hard. I have to be ready or I'll be embarrassed
I wish there was a bar I could send opposing teams to and get them hammered or something - I could tell my buddies in New York to leave their places open or something. Playing for the Yankees, guys come at you extremely hard. I have to be ready or I'll be embarrassed.
My experience over 17 years playing with the Yankees, these are a few of the things that I've learned. You've got to have a plan of action, You have to stay focused on the things you can control, and don't get discouraged or distracted by the things you cannot control.
I've been a Yankees fan for a long time. When I was a kid in the mid-'70s, the Yankees were really great. They had Reggie Jackson in '77. I was 8 years old at the time. He hit three home runs to win the World Series in game six against the Dodgers, and I was just hooked.
The Yankees won the pennant, we went on to the World Series, 41 years after that in the city of Toronto. The great city of Toronto, and all the provinces in Canada, everybody reached out and they were excited because we won the first World Series ever, across the border.
The Yankees, the first mechanicians in the world, are engineers - just as the Italians are musicians and the Germans metaphysicians - by right of birth. Nothing is more natural, therefore, than to perceive them applying their audacious ingenuity to the science of gunnery.
I was trying to land an 18-year-old strapping first baseman from Blanco, Texas, population 200. His name was Willie Upshaw. It turned out there were only three scouts who knew about Willie - Dave Yocum and I working for the Yankees, and Al LaMacchia from the Atlanta Braves.
Memorial Day orators will say that a G.I.'s life is priceless. Don't believe it. I know what value the U.S. government assigns to a soldier's life: I've been handed the check. It's roughly what the Yankees will pay Roger Clemens per inning once he starts pitching next month.
Put an Englishman into the garden of Eden, and he would find fault with the whole blasted concern; put a Yankee in, and he would see where he could alter it to advantage; put an Irishman in, and he would want to boss the thing; put a Dutchman in, and he would proceed to plant it.
A tough but nervous, tenacious but restless race [the Yankees]; materially ambitious, yet prone to introspection, and subject to waves of religious emotion. . . . A race whose typical member is eternally torn between a passion for righteousness and a desire to get on in the world.
I knew I'd never make it back to the major leagues as a player. Lee MacPhail came to me and asked if I wanted to manage the Yankees' Fort Lauderdale club. I thought about it for a day or two and decided to take the job. That was the turning point. I knew it was what I wanted to do.
On the day I was signed, Mr. Finley, the owner of the Athletics at that time came up to me and said, 'When you were six you ran away from home, and when your parents found you at a nearby lake, you had already caught two catfish and were pulling in a third. Now repeat it back to me.'
Here's the pitch. Mantle swings. There's a tremendous drive going into deep left field! It's going, going! It's over the bleachers... over the sign atop the bleachers... into the yards of houses across the street! It's got to be one of the longest runs I've ever seen! How about that!
When I was 2, I used to put pictures of the Manhattan skyline in a little scrapbook. And I used to wear American 'stars and stripe' vests and Daytona Beach stuff and they used to call me 'The Little Yankee.' Thank you to my producers for having faith in a little nobody from Lancashire.
I'm from California, but my father, who passed away when I was young, was from Newark. When I was kid, we would go back east and catch Yankees games. His side of the family are big Yankees fans. But, the real connection came in '97 when I moved to New York and became friends with the team.
Joe Dugan, who was my roommate on the Yankees, was an honorary pallbearer, too. He was standing next to me as they were carrying the Babe down the steps of St. Pat's Cathedral here in New York. There must have been 5,000 people standing around on the sides of the street, and it was tremendous.
I was born and raised in the Bronx and my grandfather and my brother Garry were huge Yankees fans. One of my first memories is of them listening to a game on the radio and screaming at the radio. My brother would cry when they lost, and when I was really little, I didn't know why he was crying.
Instead of a passion for the Yankees or fly-fishing or birding, I want to pass on to my sons a love of books, music, and art. I accept that this is partly about the gratification of my own ego, but it's also one of the only ways I know of making a rich life. That's what we all want for our progeny.
There are so many great moments in Yankee Stadium. There is nothing better or no better place better to compete when you are good and the Yankees are good and you are playing a big series in September in Yankee Stadium, four game series, there is no greater excitement anywhere than the Yankee Stadium.
I would rather have come to Baltimore than the Yankees. You look at their situation, they're the kingpin and you want to be that underdog that knocks them off the top. That's pretty much the situation I've been in my whole career. It just makes for a better season when you knock the big guys off the top.