interesting baseball quotes

[milagros317]

This is a thread in which to post quotes about baseball that you find interesting.

Some people might think I'll only post quotes from Dodgers, but I'll prove them wrong with my first post here:

"You can scatter a dozen singles and still pitch a shut-out, but you can't scatter one homerun." -Babe Ruth

 

[baldadonis]

I'm not actually sure this was a real quote, but I swore I heard it as did my two friends that were watching. It was after game 4 of the 2000 NLDS, Mets v. Giants. Benny Agbayani had just homered to win the series for the Mets. Bob Brenly's call as I heard it was, "Man was that ball f'ed." I can't believe he actually did use the f word, as I never heard any outcry about it, or it ever mentioned by anyone, but all three of us were sure he said it. And the next year he was managing the D'backs to the championship.

A quote that does exist in baseball:

Phil Rizzuto: Holy Cow!!

 

[milagros317]

"The game has a cleanness. If you do a good job, the numbers say so. You don't have to ask anyone or play politics. You don't have to wait for the reviews." -Sandy Koufax.

And his numbers said so. 😀 😀

 

[milagros317]

"The greatest thrill in the world is to end the game with a home run and watch everybody else walk off the field while you're running the bases on air"
-Al Rosen (Cleveland Indians 3B, 1947-1956)

 

[milagros317]

"Ninety feet between the bases is the nearest thing to perfection that man has yet achieved."
Red Smith, sportswriter

 

[milagros317]

"I ain't never had a job. I just always played baseball."
-Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige

 

[Ray<3tiklishft]

Reporter: You make more money than the President.

Babe Ruth: I had a better year than he did.

 

[milagros317]

"You don't save a pitcher for tomorrow. Tomorrow it may rain."
-Leo Durocher

 

[milagros317]

"Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again."
-Bob Feller

 

[Ray<3tiklishft]

"We get paid alot of money to play hockey, but we'd play the Toronto Maple Leafs for nothing."

Sid Abel, Detroit Red Wings (Around the late 40's or early 50's.)

I know the thread said "Baseball Quotes" but I couldn't resist. Can the topic be "Sports Quotes" instead?

 

[milagros317]

Back to baseball.

"If either of those pitches had been a strike, Mr. Williams would have swung at it."
- attributed to an umpire who called ball 3 and ball 4 after a young pitcher had gotten to a 2 and 2 count on Ted Williams

 

[ginbot]

The True Home Run King: Henry "Hank" Aaron

"The triple is the most exciting play in baseball. Home runs win a lot of games, but I never understood why fans are so obsessed with them."

"It took me seventeen years to get 3,000 hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course."

 

[ginbot]

Hall of Fame Announcer Robert George "Bob" Uecker

"I didn't get a lot of awards as a player. But they did have a Bob Uecker Day Off for me once in Philly."

"I knew when my career was over. In 1965 my baseball card came out with no picture."

"In 1962 I was named Minor League Player of the Year. It was my second season in the bigs."

"I set records that will never be equaled. In fact, I hope 90% of them don't even get printed."

"Sporting goods companies pay me not to endorse their products."

"I signed with the Milwaukee Braves for three-thousand dollars. That bothered my dad at the time because he didn't have that kind of dough. But he eventually scraped it up."

"One time, I got pulled over at four a.m. I was fined seventy-five dollars for being intoxicated and four-hundred for being with the Phillies."

"The way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and then pick it up."

 

[ginbot]

For milagros HOF manager Thomas Charles "Tommy" Lasorda

"All last year we tried to teach him (Fernando Valenzuela) English, and the only word he learned was million."

"Guys ask me, don't I get burned out? How can you get burned out doing something you love? I ask you, have you ever got tired of kissing a pretty girl?"

"I believe managing is like holding a dove in your hand. If you hold it too tightly you kill it, but if you hold it too loosely, you lose it."

"Listen, if you start worrying about the people in the stands, before too long you're up in the stands with them."

"Say 'Dodgers' and people know you're talking about baseball. Say 'Braves' and they ask, 'What reservation?' Say 'Reds' and they think of communism. Say 'Padres' and they look around for a priest."

"I bleed Dodger blue and when I die, I'm going to the big Dodger in the sky."

 

[ginbot]

That was for milagros. This one's for me.

"As Commissioner, you’re supposed to be objective. It wasn’t much of a secret, though, that I loved Fenway — especially how it made you a participant, not a spectator." - Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn

"Everything with me is normal except when I pitch (in Fenway Park). When I pitch here it's a little different. There is a little more anxiety to go along with the nostalgia because this is the park I grew up with as a kid. This is the park I dreamed of playing Major League Baseball in and no other ballpark has that feeling for me. There are a lot more family and friends here than in my normal starts and I want to pitch well here." - Tom Glavine in the Boston Herald (July 9, 2001)

"It doesn't matter if we were down 3-0. You've just got to keep the faith. The game is not over until the last out." - David Ortiz

And Joe Buck with my personal favourite from 2004:

"Red Sox fans have longed to hear it: The Boston Red Sox are World Champions."

 

[Ray<3tiklishft]

Ty Cobb assaulted Claude Lueker, a heckler, in the stands in New York. Lueker and Cobb traded insults with each other throughout the first three innings. Cobb climbed into the stands and attacked the handicapped Lueker, who due to an industrial accident had lost all of one hand and three fingers on his other hand. When onlookers shouted at Cobb to stop because the man had no hands, Cobb reportedly replied, "I don't care if he has no feet!"

 

[Ray<3tiklishft]

"You gotta be a man to play baseball for a living, but you gotta have a lot of little boy in you, too." Roy Campanella

 

[ginbot]

Sandy's fastball was so fast, some batters would start to swing as he was on his way to the mound. - Jim Murray, on Sandy Koufax

I was such a dangerous hitter I even got intentional walks in batting practice. - Casey Stengel, 1967

A baseball park is the one place where a man's wife doesn't mind his getting excited over somebody else's curves. - Brendan Francis

During my 18 years I came to bat almost 10,000 times. I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times. You figure a ballplayer will average about 500 at bats a season. That means I played seven years without ever hitting the ball. - Mickey Mantle, 1970

 

[milagros317]

"If I'd known I was going to live so long, I would have taken better care of myself." -Mickey Mantle

 

[Ray<3tiklishft]

Reporter to Pete Rose: Who is your son's favorite baseball player?

Rose replies: Pete Rose.

Reporter: Who is your daughter's favorite baseball player?

Rose: Steve Garvey.

 

[milagros317]

Sal "the Barber" Maglie was well known for throwing brushback pitches just under the batter's chin. When he pitched for the hated jints, he was particularly hated by the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was traded to the Cleveland Indians and later they dealt him to Dodgers.

The first time he entered the Dodgers' clubhouse as a new player there was dead silence. Then Carl Furillo, who had been hit by Maglie's pitches on several occasions, stepped forward.

Furillo: "I expect that you fight just as hard for us as you did against us."

Maglie: "That's the only way I know how to pitch."

They shook hands and there were no problems. Maglie helped the Dodgers win the National League pennant in 1956. 😀

 

[Ray<3tiklishft]

Former MLBer Randy Ready was asked if he was ready for the big game. His reply was, "I was born Ready!"

 

[milagros317]

Comment to current Dodger manager when he was a catcher for the Braves in the 1960's, by an unnamed teammate:

"Are you chicken, catcher Torre?"

Joe was not amused by the pun.

 

[Ray<3tiklishft]

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

 

[milagros317]

"Oh, hell, if you win 20 games they want you to do it every year."
-Billy Loes, Dodger pitcher

Also, Loes once claimed to have lost a ground ball in the sun. 😱