"I guess I had two strikes against me when I came into the world....my father back in Nebraska was a hard drinker before me, and so was my grandfather....sure I tried to stop. I just couldn't."
"The ball Gehrig hit was the same kind I fed him all
through the 1926 World Series.....this time I gave him a screwball on the
outside and look what he did to me. Goodnight!" (Alexander commenting on a Lou
Gehrig home run in the '28 World Series)
"Less than a foot made the difference between a hero and a
bum."
"What, and give him (the
batter) a chance to think on my time."
"What do you want me to do? Let those sons of bitches stand up there and think on my time."
"Fans tend to get too excited by streaks of either kind and
I think the press does too. There should be a happy medium."
"I'd rather win two or three, lose one, win two or three
more. I'm a great believer in things evening out. If you win a whole bunch in a
row, somewhere along the line you're going to lose some too."
"I'm happy for him (Gil Hodges). That is, if you think
becoming a big league manager is a good thing to have happen to you."
"Individual grievances and pet peeves have got to go by the
wayside. Generally, you don't have to worry about the guys who are playing every
day, it's the guys who are sitting on the bench that are the ones that get
needles in their pants."
"It's not the winter that bothers me - it's the summers."
"Look at misfortune the same way you look at success -
Don't Panic! Do you best and forget the consequences."
"More than anyone else, he's (Hank Aaron) made me wish I wasn't a manager."
"Perhaps the truest axiom in baseball is that the toughest
thing to do is repeat."
"Kels own worst enemy was himself." (commenting on
Mike "King" Kelly's drinking)
"I had no choice but to quit..I would not and could
not accept Freedman's (Giants owner Andrew Freedman)ban on talking to
newspapermen." (Cap explaining why he quit the job as Giants manager after only
three weeks)
LUKE APPLING
"You can't let any team awe you. If you do, you'll wind up a horseshit player."
RICHIE ASHBURN
"After fifteen years of facing them (pitchers) you don't really get over them. They're devious. They're the only players in the game allowed to cheat. They throw illegal pitches and they sneak foreign substances on the ball. They can inflict pain whenever they wish. And, they're the only ones on the diamond who have high ground. That's symbolic. You know what they tell you in a war - 'take the high ground first.'"
"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."
"I wish I'd known early what I had to learn late."
"The kid doesn't chew tobacco, smoke, drink, curse or chase broads. I don't see how he can possible make it."
"They (Phillies equipment guy fixing Dave Kingman's glove) should have called a welder."
"This is the only town (Houston) where woman wear insect repellent instead of perfume."
"To cure a batting slump, I took my bat to bed with me. I
wanted to know my bat a little better."
"I believe I hit nine one year, eight another and eleven
another year. And they called me Home Run......"Well you know we had a dead
ball to hit. And we didn't have the white ball to hit either.....and we had
a spit ball to go up against. And the Emory ball such as Russell Ford used to
use. And another number of pitches that you don't have today."
"It was a wonderful team to pitch for, with Plank and
Collins, Barry, McInnis and Frank Baker....what a great group of men."
"He must have been quite a pitcher because he's still fast". (After
catching Walter Johnson in a war-bond fund raising game in New York City in 1943)
"There is only one Bill Dickey. Bill isn't fast. But he is the best
handler of pitchers I ever saw."
"We were just as tough and mean as the old Orioles, at
times, maybe even meaner." (talking about his old team, the Cleveland Spiders)
"I never want to quit playing ball.They'll have to cut this
uniform off of me to get me out of it."
"Every night when I go to bed, I pray to the Lord and thank
Him for giving me the ability to play baseball."
ROBERTO CLEMENTE
"If a Latin player or even an American Negro is sick, they say it is all in the head. Felipe Alou once went to his team doctor and the doctor said, 'You don't have anything.' So he went to a private doctor and the doctor said, 'You have a broken foot.'"
''Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don't, then you are wasting your time on Earth.''
"I am convinced that God wanted me to be a baseball player. I was born to play baseball."
"I am more valuable to my team hitting .330 than swinging for home runs."
"I dedicated the hit (his 3,000th) to the Pittsburgh fans and to the people in Puerto Rico and to one man (Roberto Marin) in particular. The one man who carried me around for weeks looking for a scout to sign me."
"I felt kind of bashful (when the fans went crazy). I'm a very quiet, shy person, although you writers might not believe because I shout sometimes."
"If I could sleep. I could hit .400."
"I tell you, (Steve) Blass, you pitch me inside, they never, never find that ball."
"I want to be remembered as a ballplayer who gave all he had to give."
"I will hit .450 if you give me Ralph Garr's legs, Johnny Bench's age and cut the travel schedule."
"Nobody does anything better than me in baseball (said before the 1971 World Series)."
"There's no difference between me and you (Manny Sanguillen). You need something, a glove, a place to live, you let me know."
"When I put on my uniform, I feel I am the proudest man on earth."
"Why does everyone talk about the past? All that counts is tomorrow's
game."
"It was my greatest day in baseball." (commenting on his
game six performance in the 1935 World Series
"He was so much fun to be around just a real wild man"-- on Rube Waddell
"Boston Red Sox pitcher Hub Leonard would aim bullets at your head, left handed to boot...I dragged a bunt...which the first baseman was forced to field. Leonard sprinted for first to take the throw and saw that I was after him. He wouldn't have been safe that day if he'd scrambled into the top bleachers. I ignored the bag-since I was already out-and dove feet first right through the coaching box. He managed to duck, but...the escape was close enough medicine for him. He never threw another beanball at me."
"He was my friend and I shall miss him dearly. You couldn't help but love Matty"(On Christy Mathewson's death)
"We couldn't touch him ... every one of us knew we'd met the most powerful arm ever turned loose in a ballpark." -- Ty Cobb on Walter Johnson
"Sloppy and stupid playing drove Eddie wild. He'd blast
the teammate who gave up easy ... He was an uncanny diagnostician and probably
suppressed more potential hit-and-runs, double steals, and squeeze plays than
any infielder who ever lived." -- on Eddie Collins
"A ball bat is a wondrous weapon."
"Baseball is a red-blooded sport for red-blooded men. It's no
pink tea, and mollycoddles had better stay out. It's a struggle for supremacy,
a survival of the fittest."
"Baseball was one-hundred percent of my life."
"Every great batter works on the theory that the pitcher is more
afraid of him than he is of the pitcher."
"His (Walter Johnson) fastball looked about the size of a watermelon
seed and it hissed at you as it passed."
"I had to fight all my life to survive. They were all against
me, but I beat the bastards and left them in the ditch."
"I have observed that baseball is not unlike a war, and when
you come right down to it, we batters are the heavy artillery."
"I may have been fierce, but never low or underhand."
"I'm coming down on the next pitch."
"I never could stand losing. Second place didn't interest me.
I had a fire in my belly."
"I regret to this day that I never went to college. I feel I
should have been a doctor."
"Just speed, raw speed, blinding speed, too much speed (Walter
Johnson's fastball)."
"Speed is a great asset; but it's greater when it's combined
with quickness - and there's a big difference."
"That god damned Dutchman (Honus Wagner) is the only man in the
game I can't scare."
It it wasn't for the cheap bastard Navin, Walter and I would have been teammates and we would have won a World Series!! (Commenting on Frank Navin having the chance and not signing Walter Johnson)
I hated to see Plank (Eddie Plank) out there on the mound as much as anyone! He was just a smart, smart pitcher.
"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."
"The crowd makes the ballgame."
"The great American game should be an unrelenting war of nerves."
"The great trouble with baseball today is that most of the players
are in the game for the money and that's it, not for the love of it, the excitement
of it, the thrill of it."
"The way those clubs shift against Ted Williams, I can't understand
how he can be so stupid not to accept the challenge to him and hit to left field."
"To get along with me, don't increase my tension."
"When I began playing the game, baseball was about as gentlemanly
as a kick in the crotch."
"When I came to Detroit I was just a mild-mannered Sunday-school
boy."
"You (Stan Musial) can still run and you still can hit. Drink
a little wine before dinner and you'll play for years."
"You've got to remember - I'm seventy-three."......On why he would only hit .300 against today's pitchers.
"I haven't been able to find the words to correctly express how
I admire him as a ball player. I know he has never been equaled or even approached
as an all-round ball player, and I don't think he ever will be. There is only
one Cobb, and I shall always cherish the fact that it has been my privilege
to have played 20 years along with him, and to have his feats and deeds as an
ideal to aspire to emulate."
"And above all, not only is he a great ball player, but a great fellow personally
off the field. He has a wonderful family. You can't say anything too good about
Ty Cobb as a ball player for me. He will always be my ideal."
- Eddie Collins - 1927
"If he'd (Ted Williams) just tip his cap once he could be elected Mayor of Boston
in five minutes.
"When we were team mates I always used to wonder, what is geroge going to do next?" -- on Rube Waddell
"It's tomorrow that counts. So you worry all the time. It never ends. Lord, baseball is a worrying thing."
CANDY CUMMINGS
"A surge of joy flooded over me that I shall never forget. I
felt like shouting out that I had made a ball curve. I wanted to tell everybody
- it was too good to keep to myself."
"I always just went out there and struck out all the
fellas I could. I didn't worry about winnin' this number of games or that number
- and I ain't woofin' when I say that, either."
"If Satch (Satchel Paige) and I were pitching on the same team, we'd cinch the pennant by July 4 and go fishing until World Series time."
"I ain't pitchin' no curves today, fellers. Nuthin' but fast
balls."
ain't what it used to be, Granny. But what the hell is?
"Effen you'd only a-told me you wuz gonna pitch a no-hitter,
I'da pitched me one, too."
BILL DICKEY
"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.'"
"He (Babe Ruth) hits a ball harder and further than any man I ever saw."
"He (Lou Gehrig) just went out and did his job every day."
"I don't recall your name but you sure were a sucker for a high inside curve."
"I loved to make a great defensive play, I'd rather do that than hit a home run."
"It shore is perty (award) - much obliged."
"You guys got to see this kid (Mickey Mantle) we have in camp.
Out of class C ball, hits 'em both ways - five-hundred feet both ways! You've
got to see him."
"Whatever Lou does in the future doesn't count. He has had fourteen great seasons, and I mean great. If I could have only ten of them, I'd be satisfied. Here's a fellow who has lasted 'til he's thirty-six, and only this morning I was wondering, and me twenty-four, how long I'll last. Say, if I could go ten more years, 'til I'm thirty-four, I'd be glad to call it a career." - Joe DiMaggio
"A ball player has to be kept hungry to become a big leaguer. That's why no boy from a rich family has ever made the big leagues."
"All pitchers are born pitchers."
"I came up twice in the game with the bases loaded and both times I hit balls into the alley, four-hundred and fifty feet away. Home runs in any other park. Well, each time my own brother robbed me by making catches on the warning track. Instead of a possible eight RBI, or at least five or six, I got nothing. That night, Dom came over to my place for dinner. I remember letting him in the door and then not speaking to him until we were almost done eating. I was that mad."
"I can remember a reporter asking me for a quote, and I didn't know what a quote was. I thought it was some kind of soft drink."
"I'd like to thank the good Lord for making me a Yankee."
"If anyone wants to know why three kids in one family made it to the big leagues they just had to know how we helped each other and how much we practiced back then. We did it every minute we could."
"I feel like I have reached the stage where I can no longer produce for my club, my manager, and my teammates. I had a poor year, but even if I had hit .350, this would have been my last year. I was full of aches an pains and it had become a chore for me to play. When baseball is no longer fun, it's no longer a game."
"If I were sitting down with George Steinbrenner (to discuss a salary) and based on what Dave Winfield got for his statistics, I'd have to say, 'George, you and I are about to become partners.'"
"I'm a ballplayer, not an actor."
"I'm just a ballplayer with one ambition, and that is to give all I've got to help my ball club win. I've never played any other way."
"I no longer have it (desire to play)."
"I think there are some players born to play ball."
"Mr. Barrow, there is only one answer to that, Mr. Gehrig (contract was only $1,000 more) is terribly underpaid."
"Now I've had everything except for the thrill of watching Babe Ruth play."
"There is always some kid who may be seeing me for the first or last time, I owe him my best."
"The test of an outfielder's skill comes when he has to go against the fence to make a catch."
"Too many kids today are playing major league ball and don't belong there."
"You always get a special kick on opening day, no matter how many you go through. You look forward to it like a birthday party when you're a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen."
"You start chasing a ball and your brain immediately commands your body to 'Run forward, bend, scoop up the ball, peg it to the infield,' then your body says, 'Who me?'"
"Lou (Gehrig) welcomed me with open arms, he made the transition very easy.....it was his will and desire and character that drove us to all those pennants....you couldn't help but try to emulate the man. I was proud to have him as a teammate."
"He was the greatest hitter I ever saw...He was my Hero too!"
on Lou Gehrig!
" I saw New York in the movies, and as I got glimpses of the
skyline, of all those tall buildings, of big crowds hurrying through busy streets,
I got a little scared...."
" I remember a reporter asking me for a quote, and I
didn't even know what a quote was. I thought it was a soft drink"
RETIREMENT SPEECH
"I told you fellows last spring I thought this would be
my last year. I only wish I could have had a better year , but even if
I had hit .350, this would have been the last year for me.
"You all know I have had more than my share of physical injuries and
setbacks during my career. In recent years these have been too frequent to laugh
off. When baseball is no longer fun, it's no longer a game.
"And so, I've played my last game of ball. Since coming to New York
I've made a lot of friends, and picked a lot of advisers, but I'd like to make
one point clear-no one has influenced me in making this decision. It had been
my problem and my decision to make. I feel that I have reached the stage where
I can no longer produce for my ball club, my manager, my teammates, and my fans
the sort of baseball their loyalty to me deserves.
"I have been unusually privileged to play all my major league baseball
for the New York Yankees. But it has been an even greater privilege to be able
to play baseball at all. It has added much to my life. What I will remember
most in days to come will be the great loyalty of the fans. They have been very
good to me."
"A torn rotator cuff is a cancer for a pitcher and if a pitcher
gets a badly torn one, he has to face the facts, it's all over baby."
"If they knocked two of your guys down, I'd get four. You have to protect your
hitters."
"In Brooklyn, it was as though you were in your own little bubble. You were
all part of one big, but very close family, and the Dodgers were the main topic
of everybody's conversations and you could sense the affection people had for
you. I don't know that such a thing exists anymore."
"I hate all hitters. I start a game mad and I stay that way until it's over."
"It's a bottom line business where a lot of gray suits are brought in and then,
within two years, these guys suddenly know everything about baseball."
"My own little rule was two for one. If one of my teammates got knocked down,
then I knocked down two on the other team."
"Some of these guys wear beards to make them look intimidating, but they don't
look so tough when they have to deliver the ball. Their abilities and their
attitudes don't back up their beards."
"The pitcher has to find out if the hitter is timid, and if he is timid, he
has to remind the hitter he's timid."
"When I throw a curve that hangs and it goes for a hit, I want to chew up my
glove."
"When the ball is over the middle of the plate, the batter is hitting it with
the sweet part of the bat. When it's inside, he's hitting it with the part of
the bat from the handle to the trademark. When it's outside, he's hitting it
with the end of the bat. You've got to keep the ball away from the sweet part
of the bat. To do that, the pitcher has to move the hitter off the plate."
"When we played, World Series checks meant something. Now all they do is screw
your taxes."
"As long as I've got a chance to beat you I'm going to take it."
"Buy a steak for a player on another club after the game, but don't even speak to him on the field. Get out there and beat them to death."
"Give me some scratching, diving, hungry ballplayers who come to kill you."
"God watches over drunks and third baseman."
"How you play the game is for college ball. When you're playing for money, winning is the only thing that matters."
"I come to win."
"I don't care if the guy (Jackie Robinson) is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a $&^%!*@ zebra. I'm the manager of this team and I say he plays."
"If I were playing third base and my mother were rounding third with the run that was going to beat us, I'd trip her. Oh, I'd pick her up and brush her off and say, "Sorry, Mom," but nobody beats me."
"If you don't win, you're going to be fired. If you do win, you've only put off the day you're going to be fired."
"I made a game effort to argue but two things were against me: the umpires and the rules."
"I'm wearing the same socks, shirt and underwear, too!" - on a winning streak
"I never questioned the integrity of an umpire. Their eyesight, yes."
"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."
"In the olden days, the umpire didn't have to take any courses in mind reading. The pitcher told you he was going to throw at you."
"It was Brooklyn against the world. They were not only complete fanatics, but they knew baseball like the fans of no other city. It was exciting to play there. It was a treat. I walked into that crummy, flyblown park as Brooklyn manager for nine years, and every time I entered, my pulse quickened and my spirits soared."
"Luck? If the roof fell in and Diz (Dean) was sitting in the middle of the room, everybody else would be buried and a gumdrop would fall in his mouth."
"Nice guys finish last."
"Nobody ever won a pennant without a star shortstop."
"Show me a good loser in professional sports, and I'll show you an idiot."
"Some guys are admired for coming to play, as the saying goes. I prefer those who come to kill."
"That (Joe) Medwick never lost a debate in his life, mostly because he didn't bother. He was a one man rampage."
"There are only five things you can do in baseball - run, throw, catch, hit, and hit with power."
"There is a thin line between genius and insanity, and in Larry's (MacPhail) case it was sometimes so thin you could see him drifting back and forth."
"What are we out at the park for, except to win?"
"Win any way you can as long as you can get away with it."
"You argue with the umpire because there is nothing else you can do about it."
"You don't save a pitcher for tomorrow. Tomorrow it may rain."
"There was never a finer character - charitable and friendly
to his foes and ever willing to help a youngster breaking in." -- Johnny Evers
on teammate Mordecai Brown
"A ballplayer has two reputations, one with the other players and one with the
fans. The first is based on ability. The second the newspapers gives him."
"I hope Mays hits 600. For twenty-five years, they thought
only left-handers could hit the long ones. They even teach right-handed youngsters
to hit left."
"But if I had broken Ruth's record it wouldn't
have made any difference. Oh, it might have put a few more dollars in my pocket,
but there was only one Ruth."
LOU GEHRIG
"We were mighty short on infielders in those days."
"I'm not a headline guy. I know that as long as I was following Ruth to the plate I could have stood on my head and no one would have known the difference."
"In the beginning I used to make one terrible play a game. Then I got so I'd make one a week and finally I'd pull a bad one about once a month. Now, I'm trying to keep it down to one a season."
"It's a pretty big shadow (Babe Ruth's) - it gives me lots of room to spread myself."
"Joe (McCarthy), I'm not helping this team any. I know I look terrible out there. This string of mine doesn't mean a thing to me. It isn't fair to the boys for me to stay in there. Joe, I want you to take me out of the lineup today."
"The ballplayer who loses his head, who can't keep his cool, is worse than no ballplayer at all."
"There is no room in baseball for discrimination. It is our national pastime and a game for all."
"What are you going to do? Admit to yourself that the pitchers
have you on the point of surrender? You can't do that. You must make yourself
think that the pitchers are just as good as they always have been or just as
bad."
"I decided last Sunday on this move. I haven't been a bit of good
to the team since the season started. It wouldn't be fair to the boy's to Joe,
or to the baseball public for me to try going on. In fact, it wouldn't be fair
to myself, and I'm the last consideration."
"I worked real hard to learn to play first base. In the beginning,
I used to make one terrible play a game. Then, I got so I'd make one a week,
and finally, I'd pull a real bad one maybe once a month. At the end, I was trying
to keep it down to one a season."
"What do you think of the nerve of that big monkey. Imagine the guy
calling his shot and getting away with it!" Lou Gehrig on the Babe.
LOU GEHRIG'S FAREWELL ADDRESS
"A lot of things run through your head when you're going in to relieve in
a tight spot. One of them was, Should I spike myself?"
"He (Jimmie Foxx) has muscles in his hair."
"I'd rather be lucky than good."
"I'm the guy that made Joe DiMaggio famous."
"I talked to the ball a lot of times in my career. I yelled, "Go foul. Go foul."
"I've got a new invention. It's a revolving bowl for tired goldfish."
"I was the worst hitter ever. I never even broke a bat until last year when
I was backing out of the garage."
"No one hit home runs the way Babe did. They were something special. They were
like homing pigeons. The ball would leave the bat, pause briefly, suddenly gain
its bearings, then take off for the stands."
"One rule I had was make your best pitch and back up third base. That relay
might get away and you've got another shot at him."
"The secret of my success was clean living and a fast outfield."
"When Neil Armstong first set foot on the moon, he and all the space scientists were puzzled by an unidentifiable white object. I knew immediately what it was. That was a home run ball hit off me in 1973 by Jimmie Foxx."
"I'd rather be lucky than good."
"I want to thank all my teammates who scored so many runs; Joe Dimaggio, who ran down so many of my mistakes, and Johnny Murphy, without whose relief pitching I wouldn't be here."
"I never could wait for spring to come so I could get out there and swat
those fastballs!" -- Goose Goslin
BURLEIGH GRIMES
"If anybody was ever a greater pitcher than that guy, I wouldn't
know what his name was." --Burleigh Grimes on Grover Cleveland Alexander
"I saw a lot of good hitters but I never saw a better one than Paul Waner. I
mean I once threw a side arm spitter right into his belly and he hit it into
the upper deck."
"I may have got (Paul) Waner out, but I never fooled him."
"The oldest pitcher acquires confidence in his ballclub - he doesn't try to
do it all himself."
"Why is it there are so many nice guys interested in baseball? Not me, I was
a real bastard when I played."
"I never saw another pitcher who could so fascinate the opposition the way Hubbell did." -- Billy Herman on Carl Hubbell
"I don't like to sound egotistical, but every time
I stepped up to the plate with a bat in my hands, I couldn't help but feel
sorry for the pitcher".
" Cobb was my idol, my idea of a ball player " - 1956
"A good catcher is the quarterback, the carburetor, the
lead dog, the pulse taker, the traffic cop and sometimes a lot of unprintable
things, but no team gets very far without one."
"A manager has his cards dealt to him and he must play them."
"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."
"Luck? I never take any stock in it. A smart team makes its own breaks".
"He'd (Reggie Jackson) give you the shirt off his back.
Of course he'd call a press conference to announce it."
"If I had done everything I was supposed to, I'd be leading the league in
homers, have the highest batting average, have given $100,000 to the Cancer
Fund and be married to Marie Osmond."
"I had some friends here from North Carolina who'd never seen a homer, so
I gave them a couple."
"The thing about Reggie (Jackson) is that you know he's going to produce.
And if he doesn't, he's going to talk enough to make people think he's going
to produce."
"The sun don't shine on the same dog's ass all the time."
"There is no comparison between Cobb and Ruth. I'd rather
have one Cobb than five Ruths! I don't mean to detract from Ruth's wonderful
work, but I don't believe that there is any question that Cobb tops all ball
players of modern times. There is a great difference in the style of play
of the two men. Cobb is an all-round player, Ruth is a slugger and fair fielder.
For years Ty Cobb has been the hitting marvel of baseball. One can never tell
what Ty will do. He surprises the team and double-crosses the enemy so frequently
that he is almost a team in himself. Cobb is also a wonderful fielder,...
and his base running is the best in either league and his headwork counts
in the pinch."
" What man can dare tell what Ty will do when he comes to bat? He might make
a homer or just a bunt. Ty uses his head in the pinch. He doesn't attempt
to slam the ball out of the lot. His idea is to make a hit where a hit will
count most effectively against the other team. I've seen them all for years,
but Cobb is the greatest of modern times."
- Hughey Jennings - 1920
"What was the matter with that pitch? What do you think?
Maybe it was a little low, at that"
"I never had any problems with Ty (Cobb), we got along fine...he's a mans man and if you treat him with respect, you will never have a problem with him."
"the owners treat us like slaves"
"Can I throw harder than Joe Wood? Listen mister, no man alive can throw any
harder than Smokey Joe Wood."
"Feller isn't quite as fast as I was."
"I throw as hard as I can when I think I have to throw as hard as I can."
"I was the greenest rookie that ever was. One evening I was standing out on
the sidewalk when a stranger approached and said, 'You're famous already kid.
See, they've named a hotel for you.' I looked across the street and sure enough,
there was a big illuminated sign that read 'Johnson Hotel.' Well, do you know
that I was so green that I actually believed the man!"
"Nobody saw it, he (Rogers Hornsby) hit it and it disappeared."
"The beanball is one of the meanest things on Earth and no decent fellow would
use it. The beanball is a potential murderer. If I were a batter and thought
the pitcher really tried to bean me, I'd be inclined to wait for him outside
the park with a baseball bat."
"You can't hit what you can't see."
"That young fellow is another Cy Young. I never saw a kid
with more than he displayed. Of course, he is still green, but when he has
a little experience he should be one of the greatest pitchers that ever broke
into the game. He has terrific speed and a motion which does not put much
strain on his arm and this will all improve as he goes along." - Addie Joss
On Walter Johnson
"I keep my eyes clear and I hit 'em where they ain't."
"Learn what pitch you can hit good; then wait for that pitch."
"It was straight whiskey! I never drank lemonade
at that hour in my life!" (Kelley commenting on a Pinkerton detectives report
that he was in a bar untill three in the morning drinking lemonade)
"I'm eating strawberries and ice cream off the salary
I earn playing for suckers like you." (talking back to a heckling fan)
"There are two classes of people whose wealth is always
exaggerated by the great public. They are actors and ballplayers."
Tony Lazzeri
"They didn't get along. Gehrig thought Ruth was
a big-mouth and Ruth thought Gehrig was cheap. They were both right."
"Eddie was one of the smartest left-handed pitchers ...
He was a master of the crossfire delivery and that was one of his big assets."
-- Connie Mack on Eddie Plank
"Ty Cobb is the game's most brilliant, most daring, most lovable player that
has ever dazzled the diamond." - Connie Mack - 1927
"After all my years, there are two things I've never got used to - haggling
with a player over his contract and telling a boy he's got to go back."
"An outfield composed of Cobb, Speaker and Ruth, even with Ruth, lacks the
combined power of DiMaggio, Musial and (Ted) Williams."
"Any minute, any day, some players may break a long standing record. That's
one of the fascinations about the game, the unexpected surprises."
"As one of nine men, DiMaggio is the best player that ever lived."
"Humanity is the keystone that holds nations and men together. When that collapses,
the whole structure crumbles. This is as true of baseball teams as any other
pursuit in life."
"If I had all the men I've ever handled and they were in their prime and there
was one game I wanted to win above all others, Albert (Chief Bender) would
be my man."
"I never saw a man who juggled his (Casey Stengel) lineup so much and who
played so many hunches so successfully."
"I supposed you know why I took you out. You see the American League record
for striking out is five times in one game and I didn't want you (Jimmy Dykes)
to tie it in your very first game."
"Let him (Ty Cobb) sleep if he will. If you get him riled up, he will annihilate
us."
"Mathewson was the greatest pitcher who ever lived. He had knowledge, judgment,
perfect control and form. It was wonderful to watch him pitch when he wasn't
pitching against you."
"No matter what I talk about, I always get back to baseball."
"The game has kept faith with the public, maintaining its old admission price
for nearly thirty years while other forms of entertainment have doubled and
tripled in price. And it will probably never change."
"There has been only one manager, and his name is John McGraw."
"You can't win them all."
"You're born with two strikes against you, so don't take a third one on your
own."
"Joe D was the greatest ball player I ever saw. His
last year, my first, I saw him hit at least 25 balls to left field that would
have been homers in any other ball park except Yankee Stadium. I saw him hit
four balls to the deepest part of left-center field in one game against Boston,
and only one wasn't caught. And he did that and he was only fifty percent
of what he used to be. He would have hit eight hundred homers if it weren't
for those crazy outfield dimensions at Yankee Stadium."
"I have no idea why I liked him so much. We never could figure it out.
Me and Whitey Ford and Billy were all so different. That's why we got along
so well."
--Mickey Mantle, shortly after hearing of Martin's death, quoted in the Washington
Times December 29, 1989
"We used to tease each other about whose liver was going to go first.
I never thought it would end for him this way."
--Mickey Mantle on the death of Martin, quoted in USA Today, December 29,
1989
"You can learn little from victory. You can learn everything
from defeat"
"You must have an alibi to show why you lost. If you haven't
one, then make one up....Your self-confidence must be maintained."
"A boy cannot begin playing ball too early. I might almost say that while
he is still creeping on all fours he should have a bouncing rubber ball."
"Anybody's best pitch is the one the batters ain't hitting that day."
"A pitcher is not a ballplayer."
"A young ballplayer looks on his first spring training trip as a stage struck
young woman regards the theater."
"...But the saddest words of all to a pitcher are three: 'Take him out,'"
"If you've ever been around a group of actors, you've noticed, no doubt, that
they can talk of nothing else under the sun but acting. It's exactly the same
way with baseball players. Your heart must be in your work."
"I owe everything I have to them (fans) when I'm out there on the mound. But
I owe the fans nothing and they owe me nothing when I am not pitching."
"Many baseball fans look upon an umpire as a sort of necessary evil to the
luxury of baseball, like the odor that follows an automobile."
"No man can have a 'yellow streak' and last. He must pay much attention to
his nerves or temperament. He must hide every flaw."
"You can learn little from victory. You can learn everything from defeat."
"You must have an alibi to show why you lost. If you haven't one, you must
fake one. You self confidence must be maintained."
Chuck him (Honus Wagner) the ball as hard as you can and
pray."
"Cobb would have to play center field on my all time team. But where would
that put Speaker? In left. If I had them both, I would certainly play them
that way."
"Get in front of those balls, you won't get hurt. That's what you've (Heinie
Groh) got a chest for young man."
"He (Honus Wagner) was the nearest thing to a perfect player no matter where
his manager chose to play him."
"I name Wagner first on my list, not only because he was a great batting champion
and base-runner, and also baseball's foremost shortstop, but because Honus
could have been first at any other position, with the possible exception of
pitcher. In all my career, I never saw such a versatile player."
"I think we can win it if my brain holds out."
"In playing or managing, the game of ball is only fun for me when I'm out
in front and winning. I don't give a hill of beans for the rest of the game."
"Learn to know every man under you, get under his skin, know his faults. Then
cater to him - with kindness or roughness as his case may demand."
"My boy, one small breeze doesn't make a wind storm."
"No club that wins a pennant once is an outstanding club. One which bunches
two pennants is a good club. But a team which can win three in a row really
achieves greatness."
"One percent of ballplayers are leaders of men. The other ninety-nine percent
are followers of women."
"Sportsmanship and easygoing methods are all right, but it is the prospect
of a hot fight that brings out the crowds."
"(Bill) Terry, you can ask for more money in the winter and do less in the
summer than any ballplayer I know."
"The boy's (Hack Wilson) got talent and desire, but he ain't got no neck."
"The main idea is to win."
"There is but one game and that game is baseball."
"The team that gets off to a good start wins pennants."
"The way to get a ball past Honus (Wagner) is to hit it eight feet over his
head."
"Why shouldn't we pitch to Babe Ruth? We pitch to better hitters in the National
League."
"With my team I am an absolute czar. My men know it. I order plays and they
obey. If the don't, I fine them."
"You think the greatest thing in the whole world would be to become a baseball
player - if best things already happened, what's next?"
"Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don't
mind, it doesn't matter."
"Ain't no man can avoid being born average, but there ain't no man got
to be common."
"I never threw an illegal pitch.The trouble is, once in a while
I would toss one that ain't never been seen by this generation."
"Just take the ball and throw it where you want to. Throw strikes. Home plate don't move."
HERB PENNOCK
"Develop your faculty of observation. Conserve your energy. Make contact with players, especially catchers and infielders, and listen to what they have to say. Work everlastingly for control. Keep studying the hitters for their weak and strong points. Keep talking with your catchers. Always pitch to the catcher and not the hitter. Don't beef at the umpire. Keep pitching with confidence and control of yourself as well as of the ball. Don't get it into your head the umpire is your worst enemy. Fury is as hard on you physically as emotionally."
"I'd say that he was the smartest player that ever lived."
-- on George Sisler
"Thinking about the things that happened, I don't know any
other ball player who could have done what he did." -- on teammate Jackie Robinson
" It was a war between us and the Giants...we hated them and they hated us"
"But if Mr. Rickey hadn't signed me, I wouldn't have played another year in the black league. It was too difficult. The travel was brutal. Financially, there was no reward. It took everything you make to live off.
"Above anything else, I hate to lose."
"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."
"Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he's losing; nobody wants you to quit when you're ahead."
"But, when he (Willie Mays) was in California, whites refused to sell him a house in their community. They loved his talent, but they didn't want him for a neighbor."
"How you played in yesterday's game is all that counts."
"I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being."
"It kills me to lose. If I'm a troublemaker, and I don't think that my temper makes me one, then it's because I can't stand losing. That's the way I am about winning, all I ever wanted to do was finish first."
"I've been riding on cloud nine since the election (HOF), and I don't think I'll ever come down. Today, everything is complete."
"Pop flies, in a sense, are just a diversion for a second baseman. Grounders are his stock trade."
"The way I figured it, I was even with baseball and baseball with me. The game had done much for me, and I had done much for it."
"I'm already a member of a political party in New York, The Republican Party"
"If I'd tried for them dinky singles I could've batted around six hundred."
"All ballplayers should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill."
"All I can tell them is pick a good one and sock it. I get back to the dugout and they ask me what it was I hit and I tell them I don't know except it looked good."
"As soon as I got out there I felt a strange relationship with the pitcher's mound. It was as if I'd been born out there. Pitching just felt like the most natural thing in the world. Striking out batters was easy."
"Aw, everybody knows that game, the day I hit the homer off ole Charlie Root there in Wrigley Field, the day October first, the third game of that thirty-two World Series. But right now I want to settle all arguments. I didn't exactly point to any spot, like the flagpole. Anyway, I didn't mean to, I just sorta waved at the whole fence, but that was foolish enough. All I wanted to do was give that thing a ride... outta the park... anywhere."
"Baseball changes through the years. It gets milder."
"Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world."
"Cobb is a prick. But he sure can hit. God Almighty, that man can hit."
"Don't ever forget two things I'm going to tell you. One, don't believe everything that's written about you. Two, don't pick up too many checks."
"Gee, its lonesome in the outfield. It's hard to keep awake with nothing to do."
"Hot as hell, ain't it Prez (Calvin Coolidge)?"
"How to hit home runs: I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball...The harder you grip the bat, the more you can swing it through the ball, and the farther the ball will go. I swing big, with everything I've got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can."
"I didn't mean to hit the umpire with the dirt, but I did mean to hit that bastard in the stands."
"I don't give a damn about any actors. What good will John Barrymore do you with the bases loaded and two down in a tight ball game. Either I get the money (more than Barrymore), or I don't play!"
"I'd play for half my salary if I could hit in this dump (Wrigley Field) all the time."
"If I'd just tried for them dinky singles I could've batted around .600."
"If it wasn't for baseball, I'd be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery."
"I'll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will I give up women. They're too much fun."
"I never heard a crowd boo a homer, but I've heard plenty of boos after a strikeout."
"I won't be happy until we have every boy in America between the ages of six and sixteen wearing a glove and swinging a bat."
"Just one (superstition). Whenever I hit a home run, I make certain I touch all four bases."
"Paris ain't much of a town."
"Reading isn't good for a ballplayer. Not good for his eyes. If my eyes went bad even a little bit I couldn't hit home runs. So I gave up reading."
"That last one sounded kinda high to me."
"The termites (cancer) have got me."
"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."
"What the hell has Hoover got to do with it (his contract
being bigger than the Presidents)? Besides, I had a better year than he did."
"I decided to pick out the greatest hitter to watch and study
and Jackson was good enough for me." ---Babe on Joe Jackson
"Those Yankees were the best team. Figure it out. After we got going we won twelve World Series games-twelve in a row. It was murder. The Yankees had the greatest punch baseball ever knew. We never even worried five or six runs behind. Ruth-Gehrig-Lazzeri-Combs-Dickey- wham, wham, and wham!-no matter who was pitching."
"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"
"The only real game, I think, in the world is baseball."
"Baseball was, is, and always will be to me the best game
in the world."
"I never walked on a baseball field from 1938 until I
retired. I always left the top step of the dugout running on the field. I played
them all to win." — Enos Slaughter
WARREN SPAHN
"A pitcher needs two pitches, one they're looking for and one to cross them up."
"A sore arm is like a headache or a toothache. It can make you feel bad, but if you just forget about it and do what you have to do, it will go away. If you really like to pitch and you want to pitch, that's what you'll do."
"He was something like zero for twenty-one the first time I saw him. His first major league hit was a home run off me and I'll never forgive myself. We might have gotten rid of Willie (Mays) forever if I'd only struck him out."
"Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing."
"I felt like, wow what a great way to make a living. If I goof up, there's going to be a relief pitcher coming in there. Nobody's going to shoot (he had just returned from WWII) me."
"I'm probably the only guy who worked for (Casey) Stengel before and after he was a genius."
"Once (Stan) Musial timed your fastball, your infielders were in jeopardy."
"The difference between winning nineteen games and winning twenty for a pitcher is bigger than anyone out of baseball realizes. It's the same for hitters - someone who hits .300 looks back on the guy who batted .295 and says 'tough luck buddy."
"Twenty games is the magic figure for pitchers - .300 is the magic figures for batters. It pays off in salary and reputation. And those are the two things that keep a ballplayer in business."
"What is life, after all, but a challenge? And what better challenge can there be than the one between the pitcher and the hitter."
"When I throw a ground ball, I expect it to be an out, maybe two."
"You don't just throw the ball - you propel it."
"Baseball gives a growing boy self poise and self reliance."
AL SPALDING
"Baseball is a man maker."
"Baseball is the exponent of American Courage, Confidence, Combativeness, American Dash, Discipline, Determination, American Energy, Eagerness, Enthusiasm, American Pluck, Persistency, Performance, American Spirit, Sagacity, Success, American Vim, Vigor, Virility."
"I was not able to understand how it could be right to pay an actor, or a singer, or an instrumentalist for entertaining the public and wrong to pay a ball player for doing exactly the same thing."
"No human mind may measure the blessings conferred by the game of base ball on the soldiers of the Civil War. It had its earliest evolution when soldiers, North and South, were striving to forget their foes by cultivating, through this grand game, fraternal friendships with comrades in arms."
"Professional baseball is on the wane. Salaries must come down or the interest of the public must be increased in some way."
"The genius of our institutions is democratic - Base Ball is a democratic game."
"Two hours is about as long as any American can wait for the close
of a baseball game, or anything else for that matter."
TRIS SPEAKER
"If you put a baseball and other toys in front of a baby, he'll pick up a baseball in preference to the others."
"It would be useless for any player to attempt to explain successful batting."
"Luck is the great stabilizer in baseball."
"Ruth made a grave mistake when he gave up pitching. Working once a week he might have lasted a long time and become a great star."
"The American boy starts swinging the bat about as soon as he can lift one."
"The Babe was a great ballplayer, sure, but Cobb was even
greater. Babe could knock your brains out, but Cobb would drive you crazy."
"It's pretty funny to see them now, hanging out together. Now hat they
are both retired, it seems that the two of them have the weight of the world
lifted off their shoulders. -- on Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth
"The Babe was a great ballplayer, sure, but Cobb was even greater. Babe could
knock your brains out, but Cobb would drive you crazy."
CASEY STENGEL
"I want to thank my parents for letting me play baseball.
I'm thankful I had baseball knuckles and couldn't become a dentist...I got $2,100
a year when I started in the big league, and they get more money now....I chased
the balls that Babe Ruth hit."
"All I ask is that you bust your heiny on that field."
"Amazing strength, amazing power - he (Ron Swoboda) can grind the dust out of
the bat. He will be great, super even wonderful. Now, if he can only learn to
catch a fly ball."
"As great as the other men were on the ball club, there comes a time when you
get a weakness and it might be physical."
"Been in this game one-hundred years, but I see new ways to lose 'em I never
knew existed before."
"Being with a woman all night never hurt no professional baseball player. It's
staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in."
"Can't anybody here play this game?"
"Don't cut my throat, I may want to do that later myself."
"Don't drink in the hotel bar, that's where I do my drinking."
"Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa."
"He (Babe Ruth) was very brave at the plate. You rarely saw him fall away from
a pitch. He stayed right in there. No one drove him out."
"He'd (Yogi Berra) fall in a sewer and come up with a gold watch."
"He (Gil Hodges) fields better on one leg than anybody else I got on two."
"He (Lyndon B. Johnson) wanted to see poverty, so he came to see my team (64
Mets)."
"He (Mickey Mantle) has it in his body to be great."
"He (Mickey Mantle) should lead the league in everything. With his combination
of speed and power he should win the triple batting crown every year. In fact,
he should do anything he wants to do."
"He (Satchel Paige) threw the ball as far from the bat and as close to the plate
as possible."
"He's throwing grounders."
"Hey Heffner, take them down to that other field (St. Petersburg spring training
site) and find out if they can play on the road."
"I came in here and a fella asked me to have a drink. I said I don't drink.
Then another fella said hear you and Joe DiMaggio aren't speaking and I said
I'll take that drink."
"I couldna done it without my players."
"I don't know if he throws a spitball but he sure spits on the ball."
"I don't like them fellas who drive in two runs and let in three."
"If anyone wants me tell them I'm being embalmed."
"I feel greatly honored to have a ballpark named after me, especially since
I've been thrown out of so many."
"If this keeps up (four game winning streak) I'm about to manage until I'm a
hundred."
"If we're going to win the pennant, we've got to start thinking we're not as
good as we think we are."
"If you're playing baseball and thinking about managing, you're crazy. You'd
be better off thinking about being an owner."
"If you're so smart, let's see you get out of the Army."
"I got players with bad watches - they can't tell midnight from noon."
"It's high time something was done for the pitchers. They put up the stands
and take down fences to make more home runs and plague the pitchers. Let them
revive the spitter and help the pitchers make a living."
"It's wonderful to meet so many friends that I didn't used to like."
"I was such a dangerous hitter I even got intentional walks during batting practice."
"Kid (Phil Rizzuto) you're too small. You ought to go out and shine shoes."
"Look at him (Bobby Richardson) - he doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he doesn't
chew, he doesn't stay out late, and he still can't hit .250."
"Managing is getting paid for home runs someone else hits."
"Most ball games are lost, not won."
"Mr. that boy couldn't hit the ground if he fell out of an airplane."
"My health is good enough about the shoulders."
"Nobody ever had too many of them (pitchers)."
"No, even my players aren't players."
"(Roger) Hornsby could run like anything but not like this kid. Cobb was the
fastest I ever saw for being sensational on the bases..."
"Say, I've got a tip on the market for you fellows (29 Toledo Mudhens) - buy
Pennsylvania Railroad because by tomorrow night about a dozen of you bums will
be riding on it..."
"Son, we'd like to keep you around this season but we're going to try and win
a pennant."
"The Mets are gonna be amazing."
"There comes a time in every man's life, and I've had plenty of them."
"The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys
who are undecided."
"The trouble with women umpires is that I couldn't argue with one. I'd put my
arms around her and give her a little kiss."
"The Yankees don't pay me to win every day, just two out of three."
"They got a lot of kids now whose uniforms are so tight, especially the pants,
that they cannot bend over to pick up ground balls. And they don't want to bend
over in television games because in that way there is no way their face can
get on the camera."
"They're been a lot of fast men but none as big and strong as (Mickey) Mantle.
He's gonna be around a long time, if he can stay well, that fella of mine."
"They say he's (Yogi Berra) funny. Well, he has a lovely wife and family, a
beautiful home, money in the bank, and he plays golf with millionaires. What's
funny about that?"
"They say some of my stars drink whiskey, but I have found that ones who drink
milkshakes don't win many ball games."
"They told me my services were no longer desired because they wanted to put
in a youth program as an advance way of keeping the club going. I'll never make
the mistake of being seventy again."
"This club (69 Mets) plays better baseball now. Some of them look fairly alert."
"Wake up muscles we're in New York now."
"We (the Mets) are a much improved ball club, now we lose in extra innings!"
"Well, that's baseball. Rags to riches one day and riches to rags the next.
But I've been in it thirty-six years and I'm used to it."
"We've (62 Mets) got to learn to stay out of triple plays."
"What do you (Mickey Mantle) think (demonstrated a play off Ebbets Field), I
was born old?"
"Why has our pitching been so great? Our catcher (Yogi Berra) that's why. He
looks cumbersome but he's quick as a cat."
"You can't go out to the mound, hobbling and take a pitcher out with a cane."
"You got to get twenty-seven outs to win."
"You have to go broke three times to learn how to make a living."
"You have to have a catcher or you'll have all passed balls."
"You put the whammy on his but when he's (Sandy Koufax) pitching, the whammy
tends to go on vacation."
"That game was so famous they never used me."
"This is the greatest ball club a man could manage."
"He has more speed than any slugger and more slug than
any speedster - and nobody has ever had more of both of them together." -- on
the young Mickey Mantle
He's a good manager. He might be a little selfish about some of the things he
does and he may think he knows more about baseball than anybody else, but it
wouldn't surprise me if he was right."
-- quoted in The Sporting News, August 23, 1975
"If liking a kid who will never let you down in the clutch is favoritism,
then I plead guilty."
-- on Billy Martin the player, widely quoted
"Are the Dodgers still in the league?"
"Baseball must be a great game to survive the fools who run it."
"He (John McGraw) was the type of fellow who would call all the pitches until you got in a spot, then he'd leave you on your own."
"Hitting is business. With two strikes you really protect that plate."
"I don't know what kept me out (of the Hall of Fame), newspapermen or just that you don't want me up here."
"I had great control, I never missed hitting the other's fellow bat."
"I played baseball because I could make more money doing that than I could doing anything else."
"McGraw hated the fact that I was friendly with many of the
Yankees, especially Gehrig and Ruth. He didn't like us mingling with the enemy.
Well Mcgraw could go to hell as far as I was concerned."
"No business in the world has ever made more money with poorer management."
"To hit .400 you need a great start and you can't have a slump. The year I did it, I was around .410, .412 all season and I was really hitting the ball on the nose."
"He was a great guy once I got to know him. It broke my heart
when I went to visit him at his house when he was approaching the end." on Lou
Gehrig
"Kid, you had me doped a hundred percent" (speaking to Ty
Cobb after Cobb hit a 2 run home run)
" my shoulder is injured...I ain't fakin' it, I can hardly
lift my arm in the mornin'." (speaking about a shoulder injury which kept him
out of the 1905 World Series)
"I don't want my picture in any cigarettes, but I also don't want you to lose the ten dollars, so I'm enclosing my check for that sum."
"In all my years of play, I never saw an ump deliberately make an unfair decision. They really called them as they same 'em."
"I never have been sick. I don't even know what it means to be sick. I hear other players say they have a cold. I just don't know what it would feel like to have a cold - I never had one."
"I won't play for a penny less than fifteen hundred dollars"
"There ain't much to being a ballplayer, if you're a ballplayer."
"Things were changing fast by that time, women were beginning to come to the ball parks. We had to stop cussing."
"He never called me a kraut head, or anything of the sort, that's somthin' the writers came up with to help sell newspapers to the bugs (fans)....Cobb even told me that his lip gettin' cut was more his fault because of the way he slid into the bag" (commenting on a play in the 1909 World Series)
"Keeler could bunt any time he chose ... Also, he had
a trick of hitting a high hop to an infielder. The ball would bound so high
that he was across the bag before he could be stopped." -- on Wee Willie Keeler
"Look, there are three men in the outfield. Why should we hit it where they are? Shoot for the foul lines. If you miss, it's just a foul ball; if you get it in, it's a double. And if it goes into the stands, don't worry. We don't pay for the baseball." -- Paul Waner
"Be relaxed and don't wave the bat, don't clench it. Be ready to hit down with the barrel of the bat. Just swing it and let the weight drive the ball."
"If a pitcher sees you fiddling with the bat, he'll stall until your arms are tired before you even get a chance to hit."
"Let the pitcher move first, then, as he draws his arm back, you draw the bat back and you are ready."
"On the road, I liked to be booed, I really did. Because if
they boo you on the road, it's either because you're a sorehead or because you're
hurting them."
"A pitcher has to look at the hitter as his mortal enemy."
"That space between the white lines-that. s my office.
That's where I conduct my business.. "
"A pitcher has to look at the hitter as his mortal enemy."
"A pitcher is only as good as his legs."
"A pitcher will never be a big winner until he hates hitters."
"I don't like losing a ballgame any more than a salesman likes losing a sale."
"It would depend how well she (his mother) was hitting." - answer to if he would
throw at mom also
"I've got a right to knock down anybody holding a bat."
"I would if she (mom again) were crowding the plate." - answer to if he would
blow her down on Mother's Day
"Only if she (mom again) was digging in." - answer to if he would throw at mom
again
"That space between the white lines, that's my office. That's where I conduct
my business."
"You can't get enjoyment out of hate. I wish I could live by this one-hundred
percent, but every fourth or fifth day during the summer, I go into a Jekyll
and Hyde act. Every time a player gets a hit or home run off me I get strange
notions and ideas of things I would like to do to him. Then after the game I
feel ashamed and think to myself, 'This guy is a nice fellow and I wonder what's
happening to you, Early?' So I'll call him up and invite him to be my guest
at dinner and spend the evening talking shop."
"A pitcher's got to be good and he's got to be lucky to get
a no hit game."
"Gosh, all a kid has to do these days is spit straight and he gets forty-thousand
dollars to sign."
"His trouble is he takes life too seriously. Cobb is going at it too hard."
"I thought I had to show all my stuff and I almost tore the boards of the grandstand
with my fastball."
"One of the fellows called me 'Cyclone' but finally shortened it to 'Cy' and
its been that ever since."
"Too many pitchers, that's all, there are just too many pitchers Ten or twelve
on a team. Don't see how any of them get enough work. Four starting pitchers
and one relief man ought to be enough. Pitch 'em every three days and you'd
find they'd get control and good, strong arms."
"I had a good arm and legs, When I would go to spring training, I would
never touch a ball for three weeks. Just would do a lot of walking and running.
I never did any unnecessary throwing. I figured the old arm had just so many
throws in it, and there wasn't any use wasting them. Like for instance, I never
warmed up ten, fifteen minutes before a game like most pitchers do. I'd loosen
up, three, four minutes. Five at the outside. And I never went to the bullpen.
Oh, I'd relieve, all right plenty of times, but I went right from the bench
to the box, and I'd take a few warm-up pitches and be ready. Then I had good
control. I aimed to make the batter hit the ball, and I threw as few pitches
as possible. That's why I was able to work every other day."