Baseball Player Quotes

In order to become a big-league manager you have to be in the right place at the right time. That's rule number one.

As long as media is mass - when the consumer had no choice, when it was networks - you could fuck the consumer all day long with ring around the collar, because she had to get up and turn off the set to avoid it. With cable and interactive sets, with that remote control, you can't do that. It's got to be the polite invitation, instead of the harangue.

In no other profession does the character and personality of a director play a more vital role in the development of young people than in the coaching of athletics.

I think the key to that particular play was the throw. I knew I had the ball all the time. In my mind, because I was so cocky at that particular time when I was young, whatever went in the air I felt that I could catch. That's how sure I would be about myself. When the ball went up I had no idea that I wasn't going to catch the ball. As I'm running — I'm running backwards and I'm saying to myself, "How am I going to get this ball back into the infield?"

We are too apt to attribute to accident or occult influence that which we cannot understand.

I never found a place where I wanted to live more than Alvin (Texas).

If you will help run our government in the American way, then there will never be any danger of our government running America in the wrong way.

It's done a lot of players a lot of good. And obviously, this drug is a drug where it's dose-related. Anything in overdose will destroy your liver. I mean, look at cigarettes and look at liquor. Cigarettes says on the packet, this will kill you; it will cause cancer; and you're still smoking it.

Accomplishment is something you can't buy. If you have a chance and don't make the most of it, you are wasting your time on this earth.

Roberto Clemente

The first time I faced him I watched him take that easy windup and then something went past me that made me flinch. The thing just hissed with danger. We couldn't touch him... Every one of us knew we'd met the most powerful arm ever turned loose in a ball park.

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.

I feel that I deserve to hear just some words to justify the actions of an organization that I have honored and promoted every day of my nearly 30-year existence in it.

How often does a guy who lives and breathes baseball meet a woman who loves the game and understands it as well as he?

All the big sportswriters seemed to enjoy writing about me as an ignorant cotton-mill boy with nothing but lint where my brains ought to be. That was all right with me. I was able to fool a lot of pitchers and managers and club owners I wouldn't have been able to fool if they'd thought I was smarter.

Shoeless Joe Jackson

A guy that throws what he intends to throw, that's the definition of a good pitcher.

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.

Home plate is home plate regardless where you play. It don't move.

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.

I knew how far a little boy or girl could run with 50 words of reassurance.

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).

To get a better piece of chicken, you'd have to be a rooster.

I copied Jackson's style because I thought he was the greatest hitter I had ever seen, the greatest natural hitter I ever saw. He's the guy who made me a hitter.

You got a resident corner here... Shit-down corner. Now it's gotta be one or the other. If you ain't gotta tackle, you'd better cover. If you ain't gotta cover, you'd better tackle. THEY AIN'T DOIN' NOTHING [EITHER]

Mantle had more ability than any player I ever had on that club.

Churches don't need new members half so much as they need the old bunch made over.