What are your favorite Baseball quotes?

[thekingofclout]

Here are some of mine...

“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America, had better learn Baseball”

Jacques Barzun


The strongest thing that baseball has going for it today are its yesterdays.

Lawrence Ritter


"Nothing is more limited, than being a limited partner of George Steinbrenner."

Limited partner of the Yankees, John McMullen.


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 goddamn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all.

Earl Weaver


Every hitter likes fastballs, just like everybody likes ice cream. But you don't like it when someone's stuffing it into you by the gallon. That's what it feels like when Nolan Ryan's thrown balls by you.

Reggie Jackson


Baseball is almost the only orderly thing in a very unorderly world. If you get three strikes, even the best lawyer in the world can't get you off.

Bill Veeck


You don't save a pitcher for tomorrow. Tomorrow it may rain.

Leo Durocher


Ninety feet between home plate and first base may be the closest man has ever come to perfection.

Red Smith


The charm of baseball is that, dull as it may be on the field, it is endlessly fascinating as a rehash.

Jim Murray

[Rob D.]

A few of us understand the beauty of these Old Mill red border Bluegrass League cards, and most of the folks could care less.

-- Frank Wakefield

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

"I'll sign anything but a veal cutlet. My ballpoint pen slips on a veal cutlet."

--Casey Stengel

"Our similarities are different."

--Dale Berra, on being compared to his father

"Ken Griffey's grotesquely swollen jaw. Steve Sax and his run-in with the law."

--Terry Cashman

[thekingofclout]

I even kind of dedicated it to you and Oldtix (Rick). Just a few replies as of yet. This might be it for me...no more starting threads for small market teams. Come on Ohio! It's not like the thread was entitled:

If it's Baseball, and it's from Florida, let's see it!

I mean, the Reds. First pro team, Big Red Machine. History coming out the can!

The Tribe... umm, uh, umm, compared to the Cubbies they look like perennial champs.

I don't get it. Maybe I'll ask Leon to just lock the thread, and I learn from my mistake and go on from there.

[David Atkatz]

"The only real game in the world, I think, is baseball."

Babe Ruth

[MVSNYC]

"Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come."

-Terrance Mann (James Earl Jones), Field of Dreams

[roarfrom34]

"The only thing Earl Weaver knows about pitching is that he couldn't hit it"

Jim Palmer

[slidekellyslide]

Not really a quote, but a poem

--------------
In our sundown perambulations of late, through the outer parts of Brooklyn, we have observed several parties of youngsters playing 'base', a certain game of ball....
Let us go forth awhile and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our close rooms....
The game of ball is glorious.
--------------
Walt Whitman

[brickyardkennedy]

Probably not entirely in the spirit of Jimmy's post, but I get a laugh out of Frenchy Bordagaray's response to a question regarding how he felt about his fine for spitting on an umpire:

"Well, it was more than I expectorated".

[drc]

Most anything from Yogi Berra.

"Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing." -- Warren Spahn

"My job isn't to strike guys out, its to get them out, sometimes by striking them out." -- Tom Seaver

[Jantz]

"It is a haunted game in which every player is measured against the ghosts of all who have gone before"


Jantz

[bh3443]

" I was such a dangerous hitter I even got intentional walks during batting practice."--- Casey Stengel

I read this above his minor league card in Heritage's Auction Books that came this morning and thought you'd enjoy it as much as I did!
Thanks,
Bill

[sox1903wschamp]

"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?

Satchel Paige

[mayx2]

I'm in operation shutdown!

Derek Bell Pittsburgh Pirates.He left the team and Pirates had to eat like 7M.
No good POS



Lou

[Kawika]

"You should enter a ballpark the way you enter a church."
-Bill "Spaceman" Lee

"They throw the ball, I hit it. They hit the ball, I catch it."
-Willie Mays

"We (the Mets) are a much improved ball club, now we lose in extra innings!"
and anything else by Casey Stengel (http://www.baseball-almanac.com/quotes/quosteng.shtml)

"(Ty) Cobb is a prick. But he sure can hit. God Almighty, that man can hit."
-Babe Ruth

"Pick 'em up at 7:00, stick your hand down their panties by 7:05. If they go for it you've got it made. If they don't you've got the rest of the evening to find somebody else."
-Christy Mathewson
(nah nah, jus' keedin', it was Leo Durocher)

[mets41]

"baseball is a great game and if you don't like it--GET OUT". Sparky Anderson in his baseball hall of fame induction speach

[springpin]

In response to a blown call by a rookie umpire that cost the Yankees a game:

"If I'm going to be buggered, I don't want an amateur hoding the vaseline pot."

Casey Stengel

[Oldtix]

"My views are about the same as Casey's." - Mickey Mantle 7/8/58

[drc]

"Sure, I fought. I had to fight all my life just to survive. They were all against me. Tried every dirty trick to cut me down, but I beat the bastards and left them in the ditch."
-- Ty Cobb

[MK]

Two of my favorites:

"Oh, how could he lose the ball in the sun. He's from Mexico." Harry Carey on Jorge Orta.

"If you know how to cheat, start now." Earl Weaver on a trip to the mound to talk to a struggling Ross Grimsley.

[thekingofclout]

Here are a few more of my favorites...


Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona.
George F. Will


The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.
Babe Ruth


I was such a dangerous hitter I even got intentional walks in batting practice.
Casey Stengel


This is a game to be savored, not gulped. There’s time to discuss everything between pitches or between innings.
Bill Veeck


It’s hard to win a pennant, but it’s harder losing one.
Chuck Tanner

[GoldenAge50s]

One of the best, I think!

"Don't look back, somethin' may be gainin' on you"

Satchel Paige

[iwantitiwinit]

Stop uppercutting, stop turning your head, get your elbow up!!!!

My DAD

[Jantz]

"theres no crying in baseball"

Jimmy Dugan

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

I hate using a Ruth quote (so overused), but nobody has mentioned it:

"I had a better season than he did."

[Jay Wolt]

Quotes about Sandy Koufax

"A foul ball was a moral victory." - Don Sutton

"Career highlights? I had two. I got an intentional walk from Sandy Koufax and I got out of a rundown against the Mets." - Bob Uecker

"Either he throws the fastest ball I've ever seen, or I'm going blind." - Richie Ashburn

"He throws a 'radio ball,' a pitch you hear, but you don't see." - Gene Mauch

"I can see how he won twenty-five games. What I don't understand is how he lost five." - Yogi Berra

"The day I got a hit off (Sandy) Koufax was when he knew it was all over." - Sparky Anderson

"Trying to hit him was like trying to drink coffee with a fork." - Willie Stargell

"We need just two players to be a contender. Just Babe Ruth and Sandy Koufax." - Whitey Herzog

[bigtrain]

"If I had played my career hitting singles like Pete (Rose), I'd wear a dress."-Mickey Mantle

"I'm throwing the ball as hard as I ever did, it's just not getting there as fast." - Lefty Gomez

Asked why he showed little emotion, Joe DiMaggio - "I'm a ballplayer, not an actor.

Upon hearing of the death of the Pope, Phil Rizzuto -"Well that kind of puts a damper on even a Yankee win."

"Nobody can throw a fastball that I can't hit. If God came down from heaven, he couldn't throw a fastball by me." - Ted Williams

[whitehse]

I have this one at my desk at work.....

"Why certainly I'd like to have a fellow who hits a home run every time at bat, who strikes out every opposing batter when he is pitching and who is always thinking about two innings ahead. The only trouble is to get him to put down his cup of beer, come down out of the stands and do those things!"

Danny Murtaugh

[iwantitiwinit]

We finished last with you, we can finish last without you.

[Jim VB]

George Steinbrenner desk plaque



"Lead. Follow. Or get the hell out of my way!"


Much more than baseball advice.

[william_9]

Originally Posted by bigtrain

"I'm throwing the ball as hard as I ever did, it's just not getting there as fast." - Lefty Gomez

Bob Feller gave the same quote after starting the first inning of this year's Hall of Fame Classic.

[bigtrain]

No matter how you feel about the author the final line of Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" is a classic:
"You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time."

[thekingofclout]

You're spot-on Tom. A truly classic quote.

[jerrys]

Knowledge of the game is inversely proportional to the price of the seat.

[thekingofclout]

"Jackie Robinson made it possible for me in the first place. Without him, I would never have been able to do what I did."

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

[Robextend]

Connie Mack on Rube Waddell:

""He was the atom bomb of baseball long before the atom bomb was discovered..."

[springpin]

"He hits three ways: left, right, and seldom."

[Scouting report on a Cubs pitcher]

[mr2686]

A hot dog at the ballgame beats roast beef at the Ritz. ~Humphrey Bogart

[thekingofclout]

Back then, my idol was Bugs Bunny, because I saw a cartoon of him playing ball - you know, the one where he plays every position himself with nobody else on the field but him? Now that I think of it, Bugs is still my idol. You have to love a ballplayer like that. ~Nomar Garciaparra

baseballBUGS.jpg

[howard38]

Warning: some rough language in the following clip



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzjWQF1oP2M

[Jerry G]

"Why does a hot dog always taste better with a ball game in front of it?"

Charlie Brown

[Forever Young]

"It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great."
-Jimmy Dugan-

and of course a close second...

"Avoid the Clap,
Jimmy Dugan"

(Tom Hanks - A League Of Their Own as Jimmy Dugan)

[GKreindler]

I was always a fan of the latter...

[Kawika]

"Yeah. I know, and he can't hit in any of them."
— Dave Harris, Senators' outfielder, when told that teammate Moe Berg spoke seven languages

[Scott Garner]

Howard,
That Lasorda rant is absolutely the BEST! Thanks for that one- I laughed my ass off!

[John V]

The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided.

- Casey Stengel

(I saw this in the Yankee exhibit at Cooperstown.)

[mr2686]

Nolan Ryan is pitching much better now that he has his curve ball straightened out. ~Joe Garagiola

[Forever Young]

Everything he says or has said is true..last several lines are great.
Maris is the man.

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=482...d&bn_bnrank=2&

[KNH]

Throwing a fastball by Hank Aaron is like trying to sneak the sunrise past a rooster.

Curt Simmons

These from Richie Ashburn:
"I'm flattered that so many baseball people think I'm a Hall of Famer. But what's hard to believe is how one-hundred and fifty plus people have changed their minds about me since I became eligible, because I haven't had a base hit since then."

"MVP on the worst team ever? I wonder what exactly they meant by that?"

"They (Phillies equipment guy fixing Dave Kingman's glove) should have called a welder."

[Wite3]

Somewhere I once read that during a slow game in Seattle, Dave Niehaus was describing the action in the stands when he notices a young couple kissing after every pitch...Niehaus remarks, "Isn't that nice. He is kissing her on the strikes and she is kissing him on the balls."

Joshua