20th-century Baseball Player Quotes

The playoffs are the wedge between the season and the World Series. If you lose, it means you won't be going to the greatest sports event in this country...You're forgotten by Thanksgiving.

Do you think it's easy to just walk up to Joe DiMaggio and start up a
conversation? I've been around him at old-timers' games, and believe me, he's
someone special. It's not easy to walk over and say, 'How ya doin', Joe, whaddya
say?' You really feel as though this is the one old-timer you have to call
Mister.

If you aren't willing to face your demons-if you can't find the courage to take on your fear and hurt and anger-you might as well wrap them up with a bow and give them to your children. Because they will be carrying the same thing...unless you are willing to do the work

It seems that in almost all societies, the attitudes that people have to language change is basically the same. People everywhere tend to say that the older form of a language is in some sense 'better' than the form that is being used today.

If you ask what's been my secret of success, most might say it's my God-given athletic ability to throw a football. While talent is important, it's not necessarily the most important thing. Thousands of talented people fail every day. My strength has been my will to win-that competitive fire inside.

There is nothing wrong with people that reasoning with them won't aggravate!

The Indians didn't help me in dealing with the media. I think they wanted to keep my market value down. I'm moody. I know that. I've made some mistakes, but if I was a bad person, would someone want to pay me $55 million, would I have a scholarship fund my mother runs that pays for kids to go to school?

Base stealing for me is another sport all by itself. It's a game within a game. I'm the mouse and the cats are trying to trap me.

Being a Christian doesn't mean that our struggles are necessarily different from those of non-Christians; it's just that our solution to the struggles is different.

Bobby Richardson

Character is forged not on the mountaintop but in the valley.

All you have to do is pick up a baseball. It begs to you: throw me. If you took a year to design an object to hurl, you'd end up with that little spheroid small enough to nestle in your fingers but big enough to have some heft, lighter than a rock but heavier than a hunk of wood. Its even, neat stitching, laced into the leather's slippery white surface, gives your fingers a purchase. A baseball was made to throw. It's almost irresistible.

It's hard to be a No. 1 when you're not even No. 1 on your team.

Adam Wainwright

I was always matching wits with authority. Pondering over my past and present hassles, I began to wonder why my life had taken the direction it had. What cosmic forces had led me to this precise moment that saw me, once again, dancing on the rim of the volcano? The answers started to come to me as my life flashed before my eyes. I think it all started when I was arrested as a pyromaniac.

Bill Lee (left-handed pitcher)

I didn't fully realize it then, but that was the thing I was most trying to earn playing baseball. Not money. Not glory... Love.

We can learn from past failures and mistakes, but we shouldn't get stuck there. We can keep future goals in mind, but we shouldn't get stuck there, either. The only way to reach our potential is to focus on what we must do now - this moment, this day - to perform effectively and win.

Trying to hit him was like trying to drink coffee with a fork.

On facing Southpaw Sandy Koufax

Willie Stargell

Lasorda's standard reply when some new kid would ask directions to the whirlpool was to tell him to stick his foot in the toilet and flush it.

Sure I eat what I advertise. Sure I eat Wheaties for breakfast. A good bowl of Wheaties with Bourbon can't be beat.

I don't know how everyone else feels, but I'm exhausted.

Cal Ripken, Jr.

I could become a Gold Glove-caliber shortstop. Not as talented as Vizquel, but definitely on par with Jeter.

Stadiums fill up with people to see what's going to happen between the lines. But life isn't only about visible realities. There are invisible and unseen nuances...things that shape us into who we are.

Each year I don't play, I get better. The first year on the banquet trail, I was a former ballplayer, the second year I was great, the third year one of baseball's stars, and just last year I was introduced as one of baseball's immortals. The older I get, the more I realize that the worst break I had was playing.

Joe Garagiola Sr.

It was amazing how quickly the silence fell on the crowd. It went from being so loud that you could barely hear the guys 20 feet away on the on-deck circle, to hearing my own footsteps loud and clear as I rounded the bases…that's never happened to me before.

There's no way I can go play for the Yankees, but I know they are 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.

I really haven't even thought about it," he said. "If I somehow miraculously made it to the All-Star Game, I would be floored. I'd really be totally humbled by that. I'm just happy right now to play, to produce and to be with a good group of guys.