Favorite Quotes

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When they start the game, they don't yell, "Work ball." They say, "Play ball." ~Willie Stargell, 1981

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Baseball is the only major sport that appears backwards in a mirror. ~George Carlin, Brain Droppings, 1997

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Back then, my idol was Bugs Bunny, because I saw a cartoon of him playing ball - you know, the one where he plays every position himself with nobody else on the field but him? Now that I think of it, Bugs is still my idol. You have to love a ballplayer like that. ~Nomar Garciaparra

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I don't want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it. ~Rogers Hornsby

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When you're in a slump, it's almost as if you look out at the field and it's one big glove. ~Vance Law

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With those who don't give a care about baseball, I can only sympathize. I do not resent them. I am even willing to concede that many of them are physically clean, good to their mothers and in favor of world peace. But while the game is on, I can't think of anything to say to them. ~Art Hill

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That's baseball, and it's my game. Y' know, you take your worries to the game, and you leave 'em there. You yell like crazy for your guys. It's good for your lungs, gives you a lift, and nobody calls the cops. Pretty girls, lots of 'em. ~Humphrey Bogart

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When we played softball, I'd steal second base, feel guilty and go back. ~Woody Allen

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Baseball is a game where a curve is an optical illusion, a screwball can be a pitch or a person, stealing is legal and you can spit anywhere you like except in the umpire's eye or on the ball. ~Jim Murray

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Baseball is the only sport I know that when you're on offense, the other team controls the ball. ~Ken Harrelson, Sports Illustrated, 6 September 1976

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Good pitching will beat good hitting any time, and vice versa. ~Bob Veale, 1966

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Every hitter likes fastballs, just like everybody likes ice cream. But you don't like it when someone's stuffing it into you by the gallon. That's what it feels like when Nolan Ryan's thrown balls by you. ~Reggie Jackson

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Strikeouts are boring - besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls. More democratic. ~From the movie Bull Durham

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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, 1988

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Nolan Ryan is pitching much better now that he has his curve ball straightened out. ~Joe Garagiola

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I don't care how long you've been around, you'll never see it all. ~Bob Lemon, 1977

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It's hard to win a pennant, but it's harder losing one. ~Chuck Tanner

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Poets are like baseball pitchers. Both have their moments. The intervals are the tough things. ~Robert Frost

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Say this much for big league baseball - it is beyond question the greatest conversation piece ever invented in America. ~Bruce Catton

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The charm of baseball is that, dull as it may be on the field, it is endlessly fascinating as a rehash. ~Jim Murray

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It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. ~A. Bartlett Giamatti, "The Green Fields of the Mind," Yale Alumni Magazine, November 1977

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Watching a spring training game is as exciting as watching a tree form its annual ring. ~Jerry Izenberg

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The designated hitter rule is like letting someone else take Wilt Chamberlain's free throws. ~Rick Wise, 1974

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If a horse can't eat it, I don't want to play on it. ~Dick Allen, on artificial turf, 1970

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A ball player's got to be kept hungry to become a big-leaguer. That's why no boy from a rich family ever made the big leagues. ~Joe DiMaggio, quoted in New York Times, 30 April 1961