Baseball Quotations

Finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story.

I never said most of the things I said.

Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.

Don't let the fear of striking out hold you back.

Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world.

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

I'm going through a divorce now. This is the second one, and like baseball, I'm not gonna get three strikes. I've been living by myself for five years and I'm very comfortable. I can play my guitar when I want to.

Baseball is a team game but, at the same time, it's a very lonely game: unlike in soccer or basketball, where players roam around, in baseball everyone has their little plot of the field to tend. When the action comes to you, the spotlight is on you but no one can help you.

I didnt really grow up a comic book fanatic. I was a big baseball player, and my passion in life, in third grade, was collecting baseball cards. That was my childhood thing.

The two most important things in life are good friends and a strong bullpen.

I have discovered in 20 years of moving around a ballpark, that the knowledge of the game is usually in inverse proportion to the price of the seats.

Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is.

A pitcher has to look at the hitter as his mortal enemy.

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.

What cracks me up is people who think I don't take baseball seriously. It's the most important thing in my life. They don't know how hard it is for me to get a bad game out of my mind. I still can't, but I'm getting better.

It's a pretty sure thing that the player's bat is what speaks loudest when it's contract time, but there are moments when the glove has the last word.

I think about baseball when I wake up in the morning. I think about it all day and I dream about it at night. The only time I don't think about it is when I'm playing it.

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.'

I love baseball. I love watching baseball. As a broadcaster, I get to watch the best 700 players put on the uniform year after year. That, to me, is exciting.

Baseball is a game of averages, but over a short period of time, to have a little luck going is not a bad thing.

For me, baseball is the most nourishing game outside of literature. They both are re-tellings of human experience.

I'm a terrible singer. I feel lucky to play baseball. You can't be gifted in everything.

Hey, I'm just looking for an excuse to retire so I can play summer league baseball, go coach my nephews, play pickup basketball. I've always had that ability to move on to the next thing.

I love sharing my knowledge of hitting with others. Now coaches and players at all levels can learn my systematic approach to hitting a baseball with more consistency, mental strength and accuracy.

Every player should be accorded the privilege of at least one season with the Chicago Cubs. That's baseball as it should be played - in God's own sunshine. And that's really living.

Baseball happens to be a game of cumulative tension but football, basketball and hockey are played with hand grenades and machine guns.

Mental attitude and concentration are the keys to pitching.

Close don't count in baseball. Close only counts in horseshoes and grenades.

Sitting at a candidate rally is similar to sitting in a ballyard. Both give you the opportunity to assess the technical metrics and reflect on the intangibles - what baseball calls 'make up' and politics calls 'character' - the leadership, talent and maturity to add value to a venture.

In all my years of play, I never saw an ump deliberately make an unfair decision. They really called them as they saw 'em.

You can only milk a cow so long, then you're left holding the pail.

It's a great day for a ball game; let's play two!

Hating the Yankees is as American as pizza pie, unwed mothers, and cheating on your income tax.

In baseball you hit your home run over the right-field fence, the left-field fence, the center-field fence. Nobody cares. In golf everything has got to be right over second base.

I guess you could say I'm what this country is all about.

Building a baseball team is like building a house. You look for the best architects, the best builders - and then you let them do their jobs.

No game in the world is as tidy and dramatically neat as baseball, with cause and effect, crime and punishment, motive and result, so cleanly defined.

A catcher and his body are like the outlaw and his horse. He's got to ride that nag till it drops.

I know a baseball star who wouldn't report the theft of his wife's credit cards because the thief spends less than she does.

The trouble with baseball is that it is not played the year round.

I just always wanted to be a baseball announcer. I'm a huge Mets fan, and I wanted to be the next Bob Murphy. As far as careers go, that was the first career that I really thought about. Well, before that, I wanted to be a Mello Yello truck driver.

I keep telling myself, don't get cocky. Give your services to the press and the media, be nice to the kids, throw a baseball into the stands once in a while.

Baseball's Opening Day is full of time-honored traditions: the President throws out the first ball, the Cubs' starting pitcher walks away with a 54.00 ERA, the Royals get mathematically eliminated from the pennant race.

If you put a baseball and other toys in front of a baby, he'll pick up a baseball in preference to the others.

I enjoy baseball more than anything and would like to be involved with it forever, but the reality is your survival is determined by how well you compete, not by your fondness for the game.

People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.

I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.

I still dream about everything I achieved. I dream about my career, dream about playing baseball, meeting so many people, traveling so much.

The base paths belonged to me, the runner. The rules gave me the right. I always went into a bag full speed, feet first. I had sharp spikes on my shoes. If the baseman stood where he had no business to be and got hurt, that was his fault.

I'd rather be a good person off the field than a good baseball player on the field.

If the human body recognized agony and frustration, people would never run marathons, have babies or play baseball.

I don't care how long you've been around, you'll never see it all.

You can have money piled to the ceiling but the size of your funeral is still going to depend on the weather.

I was planning to be a baseball player until I ran into something called a curveball. And that set me back.

Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.

You know this baseball game of ours comes up from the youth - that means the boys. And after you've been a boy, and grow up to know how to play ball, then you come to the boys you see representing themselves today in our national pastime.

The doctors x-rayed my head and found nothing.

You need to have camaraderie in the clubhouse. Wherever you're working, be it a baseball team or at a business, you want to walk in there and say, 'Geez, it's great to be at work. Let's go get 'em,' as opposed to walking in there knowing there's going to be a commotion.

Baseball is what we were, and football is what we have become

The great thing about baseball is there's a crisis every day.

Swing hard, in case they throw the ball where you're swinging.

Whatever I contributed to the unique morale of the Cardinals was part of this growth, and so, of course, was my decision to have it out in public with the owners of organized baseball.

There's nothing like Opening Day. There's nothing like the start of a new season. I started playing baseball when I was seven years old and quit playing when I was 40, so it's kind of in my blood.

Why the fairy tale of Willie Mays making a brilliant World Series catch, and then dashing off to play stickball in the street with his teenage pals. That's baseball. So is the husky voice of a doomed Lou Gehrig saying, 'I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.'

One night I went over to get some dope from some Hollywood tough guy. After I left, my son Scott, who was only fifteen, went over with a baseball bat to kill him. I was laughing out of one eye and crying out of the other. I thought, Who am I kidding?

I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.

There ain't much to being a ballplayer, if you're a ballplayer.

I hope I never do anything to hurt baseball.

I never smile when I have a bat in my hands. That's when you've got to be serious. When I get out on the field, nothing's a joke to me. I don't feel like I should walk around with a smile on my face.

Statistics are to baseball what a flaky crust is to Mom's apple pie....

Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?

Major League Baseball has always recognized the influence that our stars can have on the youth of America. As such, we are concerned that recent revelations and allegations of steroid use have been sending a terrible message to young people.

Everyone thinks I'm this jock of a woman, but I didn't play any sports. I didn't even let my kids play baseball because I was afraid they were going to get hit by balls.

I think that when people join clubs as simple as a sorority or a fraternity, a football team, a baseball team, it's just - you want to be in a group. You want to be around people, you want to be with people.

I had the pleasure, as Robin said, to live a childhood dream as many young Americans and Puerto Rican children live that play youth baseball. And I feel honored and very thankful for that opportunity.

You know that a given in life in human nature, is that at a sporting event, a baseball game, a football game, you never introduce a politician, is because he'll be booed. I don't care if he's the most beloved person in the world, its part of the game.

Sports do not build character. They reveal it.

Baseball is a game of race, creed, and color. The race is to first base. The creed is the rules of the game. The color? Well, the home team wears white uniforms, and the visiting team wears gray.

As American as an apple is and as American as baseball is, they don't go together. You can't be chewing an apple at a baseball game. You've got to let go of the diet that day.

It's a weird scene. You win a few baseball games and all of a sudden you're surrounded by reporters and TV men with cameras asking you about Vietnam and race relations.

Any ballplayer that don't sign autographs for little kids ain't an American. He's a communist.

Look at misfortune the same way you look at success - Don't Panic! Do you best and forget the consequences.

I knew how to read box scores and who the baseball heroes were before I had ever seen or even heard much of a game.

Every great batter works on the theory that the pitcher is more afraid of him than he is of the pitcher.

I love baseball. The game allowed me the influence to impact kids in a positive way. This gives me a chance to talk to some social issues.

Baseball was made for kids, and grown-ups only screw it up.

There are only two seasons - winter and Baseball.

Baseball is more than a game to me, it's a religion.

No one's gonna give a damn in July if you lost a game in March.

I'm a guy who just wanted to see his name in the lineup everyday. To me, baseball was a passion to the point of obsession.

I'd give a year of my life if I could hit a homerun on opening day of this great new park.

I was lucky enough to have the talent to play baseball. That's how I treated my career. I didn't think I was anybody special, anybody different.

I live for the Red Sox. I thoroughly enjoy them. For whatever reason, baseball has been a lot more fun for me in recent years. I loosely follow the Patriots and I root for them. I loosely follow the Celtics and then it gets to playoff time and I don't miss a game. Same with the Bruins. I'm not the diehard fan anymore.

If you don't like the way the Atlanta Braves are playing then you don't like baseball.

Again, like I said, I went out to play the game of baseball because I love to play it. I did it right. I did it the right way. I worked hard doing it.

I've only been doing this fifty-four years. With a little experience, I might get better.

Baseball is a lot like life. It's a day-to-day existence, full of ups and downs. You make the most of your opportunities in baseball as you do in life.

I would love to see as many of the black players as possible in today's Major League Baseball make every effort to go to the Negro Leagues Museum and get a first-hand view of how it all started.

Baseball was a dream I gathered more splinters than hits.

I can't very well tell my batters don't hit it to him. Wherever they hit it, he's there anyway (Mays).