Quotes about baseball

A collection of quotes on the topic of baseball, game, gaming, play.

Quotes about baseball

“A baseball bat could not have hit me harder than that smile did. I was sixteen years old. In that time, how many thousands of smiles had been aimed at me? so why did this one feel like the first?”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

Smile, Feeling, Time

“Maybe baseball has to accept that it is now more like classical music than popular music, with football and basketball — and soccer? — being the Justin Biebers and Lady Gagas of sports. Baseball need not hang its head in shame. A lot of things that are good and worthy are not popular. And baseball is plenty popular, for heaven's sake.”

Jay Nordlinger (1963) American journalist

2010s, Baseball and Its Worriers (2018)

Music, Sport, Football

“I learned to play (baseball) on the streets in the Dominican Republic when I was 8 yrs old.”

Albert Pujols (1980) Dominican-American baseball player

When asked about how he learned to play baseball. http://sports.ign.com/articles/709/709384p1.html

Learning

“Hitler took the guns. Stalin took the guns. Mao took the guns. You know, 'political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' And then if another crazy person everybody knew was going to attack goes and kills some people and then I'm to blame and all gun owners are to blame? Well, if somebody runs somebody with a car are they all to blame? Or somebody with a baseball bat? This is common sense and you've got a young high school senior teenager cussing to get attention to pull a stunt but none of use are supposed to talk about it because if you respond to him calling you a piece of this or a piece of that or his cohorts calling Dana Loesch a murderer and people are chanting 'burn her', well then you're a bully. That's why CNN wants to use this to kill the First Amendment, not just the Second Amendment! You have YouTube banning videos with guns, with citizens having guns or showing guns, but Hollywood and the video game makers can show all the guns they want. This is an incredibly discriminatory system!”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

"Antigun Activist David Hogg Attacks Infowars For Gay Frogs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN4pTxI12Hc&feature=youtu.be&t=19m59s, The Alex Jones Show, March 2018.

People, School, Cars, Game

“The bassoon is one of my favorite instruments. It has the medieval aroma, like the days when everything used to sound like that. Some people crave baseball…I find this unfathomable, but I can easily understand why a person could get excited about playing the bassoon.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Source: The Real Frank Zappa Book (1989), p. 144.

People, Understanding, Personality

“I just felt baseball was a beautiful game, especially at night. The sun -- I mean, you had the lights out there and all you do is go out there, and you're out there by yourself in center field, and it's just a beautiful game. And, I just felt that it was such a beautiful game that I just wanted to play it forever, you know.”

Willie Mays (1931) Baseball player

Academy of Achievement Interview (1996)

Beauty, Game, Light, Sun

“Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It's gossip”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

“It took me seventeen years to get three thousand hits in baseball. It took one afternoon on the golf course.”

Hank Aaron (1934) Retired American baseball player

Source: In response to Jack Nicklaus' query, "What kind of golfer are you?"; as quoted in "Aaron Has Career in Day" by the Associated Press, in The Atlanta Constitution (February 23, 1971)

Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Hank Aaron / Quotes

“A ballplayer spends a good piece of his life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”

Jim Bouton (1939–2019) American baseball player, writer

Life, Way, Time

“Isn't it strange how upset people get about a few dozen baseball players taking growth hormones, when we're doing what were doing to our food animals and feeding them to our children?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Eating Animals

Source: Eating Animals

Children, People, Food, Animals

“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 (1939–2019) American baseball player, writer

Men, Football

“They took a baseball bat
and whacked open his head.
Mummy Boy fell to the ground;
he finally was dead.
Inside of his head
were no candy or prizes,
just a few stray beetles
of various sizes.”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

Source: The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories

Boy, Dead

“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.”

Jacqueline Wilson (1945) novelist

Learning, Heart

“The Maker of the universe with stars a hundred thousand light-years apart was interested, furious, and very personal about it if a small boy played baseball on Sunday afternoon.”

Sinclair Lewis book Elmer Gantry

Source: Elmer Gantry (1927)

Star, Boy, Light, Universe

“A kid might help another kid who fell into a river, and a kid might help another kid search for a lost baseball, but there isn't a kid I've met who will help another kid out of a humiliating situation. We just aren't built that way.”

David Lubar (1954) Children's writer and game programmer

Source: Hidden Talents

Way, Search, Help

“One guy wore nothing but a Speedo. He’d painted himself blue and was armed only with a baseball bat. Across his chest were the words COME AT ME, BRO.”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

Guy, Painting

“How're the Broncos doing?"
"Like a bunch of carrots."
"Is that bad?"
"Can carrots play baseball?"
"I guess not."
"Then you have your answer.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Lucky One

Source: The Lucky One

“There are only three things that America will be remembered for 2000 years from now when they study this civilization: The Constitution, Jazz music, and Baseball. These are the 3 most beautiful things this culture's ever created.”

Gerald Early (1952) American poet

Beauty, Music, Study

“I apologize for Pam. I accidentally hit her in the head with a baseball when we were in fifth grade and knocked her out cold. She’s never been right since. (Tory)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

“(Baseball) is a game with a lot of waiting in it; it is a game with increasingly heightened anticipation of increasingly limited action”

John Irving book A Prayer for Owen Meany

Source: A Prayer for Owen Meany

Game, Waiting

“Little League baseball is a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets.”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

Parent

“If you keep wiggling, things might get uncomfortable,” he said into my ear, his voice like a caress. “I’m doing my best, but thinking about baseball only takes you so far.” I froze.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Burn for Me

Thinking

“Scientists are a friendly, atheistic, hard-working, beer-drinking lot whose minds are preoccupied with sex, chess and baseball when they are not preoccupied with science.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 1, p. 5

Sex, Drink, Beer, Science

“When I was young, I was so interested in baseball that my family was afraid I'd waste my life and be a pitcher. Later they were afraid I'd waste my life and be a poet. They were right.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Life, Family

“The fundamental truth: a baseball game is nothing but a great slow contraption for getting you to pay attention to the cadence of a summer day.”

Michael Chabon book Summerland

Source: Summerland

Truth, Game, Summer

“Finally Jones came in with a blinding fastball, the way Sad Sam used to throw ’em, and Clemente unloaded. The wind was blowing in from left field that day, and blowing hard. This was 1960, remember, before the fences had been moved in, and nobody was hitting home runs at Candlestick. Not Mays, not Cepeda, not anybody. Clemente’s bat hit the ball, and the result absolutely clubbed the crowd into awed silence for a long moment. Right into that wet whipping wind the ball carried. Right on through, hit 120 feet high in a long soaring majestic parabola that came down finally over 450 feet away. There is just no way of telling how far Clemente’s home run blast would have traveled had it not been for that wind. Suffice it to say partisan Giant fans suddenly broke their shell-shocked silence and let loose a gagantic roar. For two innings the stadium buzzed. For days the Giants talked about it. Even today if you slip up behind a Giant pitcher and suddenly whisper in his ear: ‘Remember the home run Clemente hit?’ he’s likely to jump as high as if he’d been caught putting spit on baseballs.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From "Roberto Clemente: Arriba!" in Baseball Stars of 1962 (March 1962), edited by Ray Robinson, p. 115
Sports-related

Sadness, Way, Travel, Home

“I'm a very lucky guy. I had so many people help me over the years that I never had many problems. If I had a problem, I could sit down with someone and they would explain the problem to me, and the problem become like a baseball game. You're at home plate now, how do you get to first? How do you get to second? How do you get to third? When you get back to home, your problem is solved. That's the way I view the business world, I view it as a baseball game. Once you start thinking the way you've been taught to think over so many years, you have no problems.”

Willie Mays (1931) Baseball player

Academy of Achievement Interview (1996)

People, World, Way, Guy

“I suppose that American League pitchers have been feeding me soft ones for 21 years. I know how they all feel, and I don't blame 'em. They'd rather strike out the Babe than anyone else. For I've been a little lucky in the home run racket. They've walked me more than 2000 times and I've never squawked. You see, I used to be a pitcher myself. Those 2000 walks and those 700 or so home runs saved my legs. Anyhow, I've had pretty good legs. They talk about Ty Cobb's legs. He had about the best pair I ever knew of in baseball. But Ty was carrying 180 pounds for 24 years, and I've had to carry from 230 to 250 pounds. I've had to carry 50 to 70 pounds more than Cobb ever had to carry. I never talked to a horse, but I'd like to ask Equipoise or Twenty Grand or Cavalcade or some of the others just how much difference 50 or 70 pounds would make in a race. And I'm not supposed to be a horse or a tank.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

Responding to NL pitchers' stated intention—as relayed by Rice—to "bear down on" Ruth in 1935; as quoted in "'Never Happier in My Life' Ruth Tells Grantland Rice..."

Feeling, Home, Time, Horse

“Ten years ago, you could have traveled thousands of miles through the United States and never seen a baseball cap turned back to front. Today, the reverse baseball cap is ubiquitous. I do not know what the pattern of geographical spread of the reverse baseball cap precisely was, but epidemiology is certainly among the professions primarily qualified to study it.”

Richard Dawkins book Viruses of the Mind

Viruses of the Mind (1993)

Travel, Study

“Baseball players have to go in front of a grand jury and say, "Yeah, I did cocaine. Can you blame me? It's a slow goddamn game! Come on Jack! Standing out in left field for seven innings, and there's a long white line going down to home plate! I see the guy putting it out going "Heh heh heh heh!!!!" And that damn organ music too, the whole [does intro to "Charge!"]! Third base coach is always doing this…[wiping nose, fidgeting around]. When he's doing that, I don't know whether to slide or do a line! People sliding into home plate head first, umpire goes, "You're out!"”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

"No, baby, I'm up now! Ha ha ha!"
A Night at the Met (1986)

People, Music, Guy, Home

“Baseball people are generally allergic to new ideas; it took years to persuade them to put numbers on uniforms, and it is the hardest thing in the world to get Major League Baseball to change anything—even spikes on a new pair of shoes—but they will eventually…they are bound to.”

Branch Rickey (1881–1965) American baseball player and coach

In 1954.
Source: http://www.northsidebaseball.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=45283&start=25&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

People, World, Shoe, Idea

“To see his boxscore lines … is to have no idea that the Indians center fielder might very well be the angriest player in baseball.”

Milton Bradley (baseball) (1978) Major League Baseball player

ESPN, Bradley knows only one way — the hard way, Alan Schwarz, July 10, 2003, 2009-01-04 http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=1574709&type=story, About

Idea

“I am having a plaque put on the front of my house. It will say, "To God, Mother, Father and Baseball."”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Clemente's Smiling All the Way to the Bank" http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/61275081/ by Milton Richman (UPI), in The San Bernardino County Sun (Tuesday, December 6, 1966), p. 27 Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1966</big>

God, Housing

“But it is unnecessary for me to do more than mention a few of the representative forms of recreation. We all know that their name is legion, and that different tastes require different activities. I am not trying to recommend one above another, but I am trying to point out the national value which would accrue if there were an organized, instructed, and persistent effort to bring these benefits to the people at large. It can not be that our country is making a great outlay for playgrounds in our schools, for athletic fields in our colleges, for baseball fields in our cities, for recreation parks in our metropolitan districts, for State and national forest reservations, unless these all represent an opportunity for a real betterment of the life of the people. These are typically American in all their aspects. They minister directly to the welfare of all our inhabitants.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Democracy of Sports (1924)

Life, People, School, Effort

“Just down the road stood a little town, which I shall call Dullard lest the people recognize themselves and take me to court or come to my house and batter me with baseball bats.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America (1989)

People, Housing

“I suddenly realized that comedy, for me, was just being honest, and playing it for real. I've seen so many wonderful actors who turn into creatures from another planet when they're told they are supposed to be playing comedy. I… was not too happy to suddenly take on this public role thrust upon me. They just assumed I was the Joan of Arc of the women's movement. And I wasn't at all. It put a lot of unnecessary pressure on me. I'd never even been to Wrigley Field. I never even enjoyed baseball that much, but I loved being there, the crowd was lovely, and they all sang with me!”

Bea Arthur (1922–2009) actress, singer, comedian

Interview, TV Legends, August 6, 2005

Love, Women, Happiness

“Ah wonder if anybody this side of the Atlantic has ever bought a baseball bat with playing baseball in mind.”

Irvine Welsh book Trainspotting

Sick Boy, "Blowing It: Deid Dugs" (Chapter 4, Story 3).
Trainspotting (1993)

“I want play but back hurt. If I no can play good, I no help team. So I wait until pain goes away. I no swing bat good, no run good, no catch ball like old times. I try but pain, she too much. Some days, no pain. Other days, pain all time. Some days pain so much I theenk maybe I quit baseball. But I need money so I play baseball.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted and paraphrased in "Aching Back Puts Clemente On Bench Again" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=nUEqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=BU4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=7330%2C2562781 by Les Biederman, in The Pittsburgh Press (Friday, July 26, 1957), p. 20 Baseball-related, <big><big>1950s</big></big>, <big>1957</big> Context: "I want play but back hurt. If I no can play good, I no help team. So I wait until pain goes away. I no swing bat good, no run good, no catch ball like old times. I try but pain, she too much. Some days, no pain. Other days, pain all time. Some days pain so much I theenk maybe I quit baseball. But I need money so I play baseball." Clemente doesn't even want to think of an operation on his back. He says he had two brothers and a sister who died following surgery and his family opposes operations.

Money, Pain, Time, Waiting

“Baseball skill relates inversely to age. The older a man gets, the better a ball player he was when young, according to the watery eye of memory.”

Roger Kahn (1927–2020) American baseball writer

Source: The Boys Of Summer, Chapter 1, The Trolley Car That Ran By Ebbets Field, p. 10

Age, Memory

“Pitchers—real pitchers— know that their job isn't so much to keep opposing batsmen from hitting as it is to make them hit it at someone. The trouble with most kid pitchers is that they forget there are eight other men on the team to help them. They just blunder ahead, putting everything they have on every pitch and trying to carry the weight of the whole game on their shoulders. The result is that they tire out and go bad along in the middle of the game, and then the wise old heads have to hurry out and rescue them. I've seen a lot of young fellows come up, and they all had the same trouble. Take Lefty Grove over at Philadelphia, for instance. There isn't a pitcher in the league who has more speed or stuff than Lefty. He can do things with a baseball that make you dizzy. But when he first came into the league he seemed to think that he had to strike out every batter as he came up. The result was he'd go along great for five or six innings, and them blow. And he's just now learning to conserve his strength. In other words, he's learning that a little exercise of the noodle will save a lot of wear and tear on his arm.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

"Chapter III," Babe Ruth's Own Book of Baseball (1928), pp. 32-33; reprinted as "Babe Ruth's Own Story — Chapter III: Pitching the Keynote of Defense; The Pitcher's Job; Why Young Hurlers Fail," https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=r0sbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=J0sEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6011%2C3899916 in The Pittsburgh Press (December 23, 1928), p. 52

Men, Exercises, Game, Thinking

“Baseball performance is an outcome of opposing forces.”

Andrew Zimbalist (1947) American economist

Source: Baseball And Billions - Updated edition - (1992), Chapter 6, The Metropoli, p. 142

“One can travel for weeks with baseball men and see no books at all.”

Roger Kahn (1927–2020) American baseball writer

Source: The Boys Of Summer, Chapter 1, The Trolley Car That Ran By Ebbets Field, p. 6

Men, Books, Travel

“I opposed the war in Iraq because I did not believe it was in our national security interest, and I still don't. What we did was akin to taking a baseball bat to a beehive. Our primary security threat right now is terrorism ---and by doing what we did in Iraq, we've managed to alienate a good part of the world and most of the allies whose intelligence and other help we need to combat and defeat terrorism.”

Jerry Springer (1944) American television presenter, former lawyer, politician, news presenter, actor, and musician

Democratic Veteran http://www.usndemvet.com/blog/archives/000592.html, interview with Jo Fish 06/23/03

War, World, Intelligence, Help

“It's the wild, wild West of baseball, and it just keeps getting wilder.”

Joe Kehoskie (1973) American baseball agent

Discussing the business of Cuban baseball defectors, from the Boston Globe article "Hardball" http://apse.dallasnews.com/contest/2000/writing/all.investigative.third1.html by Steve Fainaru and Shira Springer (28 May 2000)

“With today's high salaries, long term contracts, and corporate penetration of the ownership ranks, it is commonplace to hear commentators rue baseball's growing commercialization, claiming it is undermining the aesthetics and competitive spirit of the game. In fact baseball's growing commercialism has been a constant since the 1860s.”

Andrew Zimbalist (1947) American economist

Source: Baseball And Billions - Updated edition - (1992), Chapter 2, Baseballs Barons, p. 30.

Game

“The men who build and design this park are transcendentalists. To them, Central Park is a place to become one with nature, to focus on trees, to scintillate with grass, to stare into one anothers' eyes. No sweating allowed in the original Central Park, no perspiration of any kind. Anyone you see congregating for the baseball game on the left, bicycling, rollerblading, jogging, they are not historically accurate. Anyone you see lounging in the sun, having a picnic, or kissing; They are historically accurate.”

Timothy Levitch (1970) American actor

The Cruise (1998)

Men, Game, Kiss, Nature

“I want to thank my teammates for being a bunch of swell guys. I want to thank Branch Rickey for giving me the opportunity of playing baseball. Most of all I want to thank the people of Pittsburgh whose encouragement helped me win this award. They deserve the best.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

From the Dapper Dan Award acceptance speech given on February 4, 1962, as quoted in "CHANGE OF PACE: Clemente Holds His Own as a Speaker'" by Bill Nunn, Jr., in The New Pittsburgh Courier (February 17, 1962)
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1962</big>

People, Guy, Help

“Last year I lose almost 20 pounds. When I go home end season I weigh only 163. I worry more 'bout bad back than I worry 'bout baseball. Now I feel goot. Ver goot. I sink I play one fitty games and I hit thee hunnert. I feel I hab goot season. Maybe fiteen home runs, nyenee RBIs, steal maybe dirty bases.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "The Great Outdoors: Drafted for $4,000, Clemente Becomes Bucs' Top Bargain; Now That His Back Ailment Is Cured, Outfielder Hopes He'll Hit .300 Again" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xUEqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Dk4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=7140%2C2566447 by Les Biederman, in The Pittsburgh Press (Thursday, April 10, 1958), p. 28 Baseball-related, <big><big>1950s</big></big>, <big>1958</big>

Feeling, Home, Game, Season

“Unfortunately, here in the Dominican, a lot of the time kids just quit school at 10, 11, 12 and play baseball full-time. It’s great for the kids who make it because they become superstars and [make] millions of dollars in the big leagues. But for 98 kids out of a hundred, it results in a kid who is 18, 19 with no education. So it’s kind of a win-lose here in the Dominican.”

Joe Kehoskie (1973) American baseball agent

Discussing amateur baseball in the Dominican Republic, from the PBS documentary Stealing Home http://www.pbs.org/stealinghome/transcript.html (18 June 2001)

Education, School, Time

“One of the legendary broadcasters of our game. His distinct voice was a comfort to a generation of baseball fans in New England and throughout the country.”

Bud Selig (1934) American baseball executive

Game, Country

“There are fewer more distressing sights
than that of an Englishman in a baseball cap
Yeah, we'll die in the class we were born
That's a class of our own, my love”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

"Time for Heroes"(with Carl Barat)
Lyrics and poetry

Love

“Well, the New York Times editorial board, that reliable abettor of all the liars, haters, and fantasists, aka Democrats, who detest the American South and lust to rewrite America's history into party-serving fiction, has endorsed dumping Andrew Jackson in favor of rewarding a woman with his place on the twenty dollar bill. So fundamentally important to the nation is this switch that the Board’s reputedly adult members have decided that the only group sober and knowledgeable enough to decide how to destroy another piece of American history and further persecute the South is 'the nation's schoolchildren' who should be made to 'nominate and vote on Jackson’s replacement. Why not give them another reason to learn about women who altered history and make some history themselves by changing American currency?' Why of course, what geniuses! And, then, why not let these kids — who cannot figure out that the brim of baseball cap goes in the front — go on to decide other pressing national issues. Maybe they can replace General Washington on the $1 bill with a Muslim woman and thereby end America's war with Islam. As the saying goes, you could not make this stuff up. Now Andrew Jackson was not the most unblemished of men, but he risked his life repeatedly for his country; killed its enemies; expanded U. S. territory in North America; defeated the British at New Orleans; was twice elected president; and faced down and was prepared to hang the South Carolina nullifiers when he believed they were seeking to undermine and break the Union. Jackson is one of those southern fellows, and so he is now a target for banishment from our currency and eventually our history because he did not treat slaves and Indians as if they were his equals and, indeed, inflicted pain on both. But he also was, along with Thomas Jefferson, another insensitive chap toward blacks and Indians, the longtime icon of the Democratic Party and its great self-praising and fund-raising feast, the annual 'Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner', which was, of course, a fervent tribute to those that General Jackson would have hanged without blinking.”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

As quoted in Michael Scheuer's Non-Intervention http://non-intervention.com/1689/democrats-scourge-the-south-after-the-battle-flag-it%e2%80%99s-on-to-old-hickory/ (9 July 2015), by M. Scheuer. 2010s

Life, Women, Men, Pain

“Michael Jordan did not get good at basketball by practicing 42 minutes a week, which is what most kids have in the computer lab. … Whether it's a scalpel, baseball bat or a computer, the skill in the use of a tool rests upon practice and familiarity, and that's what these kids are going to have to an unprecedented extent.”

Angus King (1944) United States Senator from Maine

On his program to purchase iBook computers for Maine public schools, as quoted in "Maine Students Hit the iBooks" by Katie Dean in WIRED (9 January 2002)

“The language of the game is interesting. You can think of the pauses as caesuras, breaks between the lines. As a poem the game is composed of a number of short lines representing the pitches. The number of lines per batter form a stanza. Then there is a space. Sometimes the stanzas become breathless, rushing full paragraphs that build rapidly on each other until the poem-inning explodes. The poem lives for this sudden blossoming out of prosodic regularity. Should someone make a computer analysis of baseball prosody, I believe that they would come up with something close to the prosody of some great American lyrical epic, Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, let’s say, or Doc Williams’s Patterson…. The game is definitely an epic … formed of many lyrical moments dependent on silences for their effectiveness. An unfolding story punctuated by brief emotional swellings.”

Andrei Codrescu (1946) American writer

“A Kind of Love,” The Muse Is Always Half-Dressed (1993).

Game, Thinking, Silence, Grass

“I was in the streets marching for civil rights while asshole southern sheriffs were swinging nail studded baseball bats at blacks' heads. Two things you can always count on: I will defend my record on race to no one (sic), under any circumstances and, I will call out any racist, any time without regard to who they are... and that includes our half white, racist President.”

Mark Williams American conservative activist, radio talk show host and author

Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/05/21/2010-05-21_nothing_is_out_of_bounds_for_national_tea_party_express_foulmouthed_leader_mark_.html#ixzz0oxS7r1Rj

Time

“How many of you watched the vice presidential debate expecting Sarah Palin to screw up? Be honest. [cheers and applause] : And how many of you watched the debate expecting Joe Biden to screw up? [more cheers and applause] : And how many of you watched the baseball game knowing the Cubs would screw up?”

Jay Leno (1950) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, voice actor and television host

more applause
Monologue, 6 October, 2008
The Tonight Show

Game

“You just can't predict baseball.”

John Sterling (1938) Sports broadcaster

Pennington, Bill. (October 1, 2011). Voice of Yankees Draws High Ratings and Many Critics. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/sports/baseball/voice-of-yankees-draws-high-ratings-and-several-critics.html The New York Times.

“The greatest country in the history in the world is being attacked. So all of this (baseball) doesn"t mean very much.”

Bud Selig (1934) American baseball executive

World, History, Country

“I love the game too much to quit. But right now I can't run or swing a bat too well. I had my tonsils out two weeks ago in Pittsburgh and that helped, but I still have the pain. I am studying to be a civil engineer in Puerto Rico, so that's what I'll do if I have to give up baseball.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted and paraphrased in "Not to Quit, Clemente Says" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=48ZRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2GsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4385%2C3795732 by the Associated Press, in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Friday, July 26, 1957), p. 14 Baseball-related, <big><big>1950s</big></big>, <big>1957</big>

Love, Pain, Game, Study

“If you're a singer you lose your voice. A baseball player loses his arm. A writer gets more knowledge, and if he's good, the older he gets, the better he writes.”

Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) American writer

Writers on Writing interview (1986)

Knowledge

“No game is as verbal as baseball; baseball spreads twenty minutes of action across three hours of a day.”

Roger Kahn (1927–2020) American baseball writer

Source: The Boys Of Summer, Chapter 1, The Trolley Car That Ran By Ebbets Field, p. 9

Game

“When he died, he held fourteen baseball records, a little man with a bashful smile, a silken swing, baseball's legendary nice guy. His death was the worst that could have happened to baseball, but his playing career had been the best.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

On Mel Ott, from "Nice Guy," in Greatest Giants of Them All (1967), p. 232; reprinted in Mel Ott: The Little Giant of Baseball https://books.google.com/books?id=5JlCbMNiWr0C&pg=PA192&dq=%22Arnold+Hano+wrote+feelingly%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAGoVChMI4Yfx7arUxwIViHA-Ch3J4wOi#v=onepage&q=%22Arnold%20Hano%20wrote%20feelingly%22&f=false (1999) by Fred Stein, p. 192 Sports-related

Death, Smile, Guy

“Fidel Castro essentially forced these guys to leave Cuba. It wasn't really even a choice. It was either stay at home, be handed a broom and told 'have a nice life' or they could leave Cuba and continue playing baseball.”

Joe Kehoskie (1973) American baseball agent

On Cuban baseball defectors, from the PBS documentary Stealing Home http://www.pbs.org/stealinghome/transcript.html (18 June 2001)

Life, Guy, Home

“Baseball players or cricketers do not need to be able to solve explicitly the non-linear differential equations which govern the flight of the ball. They just catch it.”

Paul Ormerod book The Death of Economics

Part I, Chapter 5, Mechanistic Modelling, p. 108
The Death of Economics (1994)

“Things would have worked out a lot better if we had bought our first television set a year earlier, in 1950, so that I could have watched DiMaggio while he was still great. Then I could have shared with my father and other people the vision of the eternal baseball star. It might even have helped me to have more appreciation for some of my elders in the economics profession. But maybe I should be worrying instead about what the young hot shots in economics are thinking of me.”

Robert Barro (1944) American classical macroeconomist

Source: Nothing Is Sacred (2002), p. 65

People, Star, Thinking, Help

“I was so anxious for this season to start when I was at home last winter. I was thinking in terms of a big year for myself—moneywise. I had batted.357 last year and I thought that if I had another big year I might get paid more money than anybody ever did in baseball. Then I fell and then I wonder if I will be able to play at all.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Top Salary Vision of Clemente Dims; Subpar Season Hurts" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=3q4nAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Y2wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4117,4986463 by Charley Feeney, in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Friday, September 27, 1968), p. 23 Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1968</big>

Money, Home, Thinking, Winter

“It's time for Dodger baseball!”

Vin Scully (1927) American sports broadcaster

His iconic https://twitter.com/DodgerInsider/status/448965492045148160 opening quote

Time

“It is true that I described antisocial, parsimonious, sanctimonious, and wasteful behavior by the owners over the years, but baseball's problem is structural, not individual. Put any individual into a position of power with an opportunity to make tens of millions of dollars in an industry that is on a cultural pedestal and protected from all forms of competition, and the odds are against the second coming of Lee Iacocca or Ralph Nader.”

Andrew Zimbalist (1947) American economist

Preface to The Updated Edition, p. xiii-xiv
Baseball And Billions - Updated edition - (1992)

Behavior, Problem

“In pitching, control is the main thing—one thing you've got to have. Few pitchers have it. In batting, it is timing—waiting on the ball, not hurrying the swing—just as it is in golf. Most hitters in baseball swing too quickly. They can't wait on the pitch. Old Joe Jackson could wait. So could Speaker and Cobb”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

As quoted in "Babe Ruth, Idle First time In 23 Years, Blames His Legs"

Time, Waiting

“I can't honestly say that I appreciate the way in which he changed baseball — from a game of science to an extension of his powerful slugging — but he was the most natural and unaffected man I ever knew. No one ever loved life more. No one ever inspired more youngsters. I have reverence for his marvelous ability. I look forward to meeting him again some day.”

Ty Cobb (1886–1961) American baseball player

On Babe Ruth, in Ch. 16 : The Babe and I, p. 222
My Life In Baseball : The True Record (1961)

Love, Life, Way, Game

“Hell no, it isn't a fact. Only a damned fool would do a thing like that. You know there was a lot of pretty rough ribbing going on on both benches during that Series. When I swung and missed that first one, those Cubs really gave me a blast. So I grinned at 'em and held out one finger and told 'em it'd only take one to hit it. Then there was that second strike and they let me have it again. So I held up that finger again and I said I still had that one left. Naw, keed, you know damned well I wasn't pointin' anywhere. If I'd have done that, Root would have stuck the ball right in my ear. And besides that, I never knew anybody who could tell you ahead of time where he was going to hit a baseball. When I get to be that kind of fool, they`ll put me in the booby hatch.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

Responding to Chicago sportscaster Hal Totten in the spring of 1933, as to whether Ruth had actually 'called' his 5th-inning home run in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series, as quoted in "Oct. 1, 1932 The Yankees' Babe Ruth Gestures Toward Wrigley Field's Bleachers Then Homers Off The Cubs' Charlie Root, Apparently Calling His Shot In Game 3 Of The World Series" http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-11-01/sports/8703230677_1_babe-ruth-cub-bench-world-series-history/3 by Jerome Holtzman, in The Chicago Tribune (1987)

Fools, Hell, Time

“In a word, the home is a little dull. When you have got a woman in a box, and you pay rent on the box, her relationship to you insensibly changes character. It loses the fine excitement of democracy. It ceases to be companionship, for companionship is only possible in a democracy. It is no longer a sharing of life together—it is a breaking of life apart. Half a life—cooking, clothes, and children; half a life—business, politics, and baseball. It doesn’t make much difference which is the poorer half. Either half, when it comes to life, is very near to none at all.Of course, this artificial distinction does not strictly obtain in any particular marriage. There is an attempt to break it down. It is an honourable attempt. But our civilization is nevertheless built on that distinction, In order to break down that distinction utterly, it will be necessary to break down all the codes and restrictions and prejudices that keep women out of the great world. It is in the great world that a man finds his sweetheart, and in that narrow little box outside of the world that he loses her. When she has left that box and gone back into the great world, a citizen and a worker, then with surprise and delight he will discover her again, and never let her go.”

Floyd Dell (1887–1969) novelist, poet, playwright, critic, editor

[Dell, Floyd, Feminism for Men, The Masses, New York, 1914]

Life, Women, Marriage, Children

“Nor was my attendance at the Polo Grounds limited to baseball games. I sat in the lower left field stands to watch the championship professional football game between the undefeated Chicago Bears led by Bronc Nagurski and the New York Giants. Because the field was so icy slick—the temperature dipped to four degrees above zero that Sunday afternoon—the Giants' owner Wellington Mara had a minion at halftime break into Manhattan College's gymnasium and steal the school's basketball sneakers. Clad in sneakers and suddenly able to keep from sliding all over the joint, the Giants turned a 13-3 deficit into a 30-13 victory. All this despite an advisory to his teammates from a former Chicago linebacker named George Halas, "Step on their toes! Step on their toes!"”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From his Foreword https://books.google.com/books?id=jF7v30gqs_0C&pg=PA8&dq=%22Nor+was+my+attendance%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAGoVChMIr7rJg_3UxwIVRDc-Ch0APQ6M#v=onepage&q=%22Nor%20was%20my%20attendance%22&f=false to The Early Polo Grounds Sports-related

School, Game, Victory, Football

“It seemed too easy to claim that there was nothing new under the sun, that … our spear-wielding ancestors had been as wise and good as ourselves and that the onward march of rational thought had brought with it nothing but tragedy. Did any of these arguments take into account Ariane’s profile on her way up? Did they credit the impeccable logic of her hydraulic systems? And most of all, did not such bromides merely betray the resentment of a defeated and unimaginative class? I felt my allegiances shift to the engineers and technicians around me, these new medicine men who often sported baseball caps, and had a tendency towards unsophisticated humour. What astonishing creatures they were! What extraordinary horizons they had opened up!”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

[describing his sentiments after the launch of the rocket Ariane] pp. 163-164.
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009)

Men, Way, Sport, Sun

“I feel sometimes an American artist must feel, like a baseball player or something - a member of a team writing American history..”

Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) Dutch painter

Willem de Kooning (1969) by Thomas B. Hess, Content Is A Glimpse, excerpts from an interview with David Sylvester, (BBC), Location, vol.1 no.1 Spring 1963.
1960's

Feeling, History

“A small, but interesting, portion of baseball can be understood on the basis of physical principles. The flight of balls, the liveliness of balls, the structure of bats, and the character of the collisions of balls and bats are a natural province of physics and physicists.”

Robert Adair (physicist) (1924) Physicist and author

Source: The Physics Of Baseball (Second Edition - Revised), Chapter 1, Models And Their Limitations, p. 1

Nature

“Nolan Ryan is simply a flame-thrower. They call him The Express. Get it? Ryan's Express. Harmon Killebrew says if he ever gets hit by Ryan's express, he'll have the pitcher arrested for manslaughter. Oakland slugger Reggie Jackson says Ryan is the only pitcher he's afraid of, down-deep-in-the-guts afraid of. "If a pitch ever gets away from him, he will kill someone." Nolan Ryan pitches for the California Angels, in Anaheim, which you also wouldn't confuse with New York. Thus, few people really know what an exciting young man this is, perhaps the most exciting single performer in baseball today. Yes, I've heard of Hank Aaron. For years I beat the drums, by myself, for Roberto Clemente. I like the cool gall of Vida Blue, the hot moxie of Pete Rose. They all excite me. But not down deep in the guts, the way this kid does. He excites me. He frightens me. He puts me on that double-pronged fork of attraction and revulsion. When you watch Nolan Ryan rear and throw that screaming blur of white toward the plate, you don't know whether to watch or cover your eyes. Will he strike out the hitter, or will he strike him dead?”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From "Nolan Ryan: The Untouchable," in Baseball Stars of 1973 (March 1973), edited by Ray Robinson, p. 92
Sports-related

People, Angels, Way, Dead

“Certainly it is okay for them to play. I see no reason in the world why we shouldn't compete with colored athletes as long as they conduct themselves with politeness and gentility. Let me say also that no white man has the right to be less of a gentleman than a colored man, in my book that goes not only for baseball but in all walks of life.”

Ty Cobb (1886–1961) American baseball player

Responding to the impending integration of the Dallas Rangers, as quoted in "Between the Lines" http://www.mediafire.com/view/e8dga7hnpbb7tzk/BETWEEN_THE_LINES_THE_GREAT_T(2).jpg by Dean Gordon Hancock (ANP), in The Atlanta Daily World (February 10, 1952); reproduced in "The Knife in Ty Cobb’s Back" http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-knife-in-ty-cobbs-back-65618032/ (30 August 2011), Smithsonian, by Gilbert King.

Life, Books, Color, World

“Christian. Faith, Family, then Baseball. If what you did yesterday still seems big today, then you haven't done anything today!”

Aaron Judge (1992) American baseball player

Aaron Judge's Twitter Page https://twitter.com/thejudge44?lang=en

Family, Faith

“The players are not interested in the score, but merely in how many runs are necessary to tie and to win. They take nothing for granted in baseball. The idea is to win. The game's the thing.”

Moe Berg (1902–1972) baseball player, spy

September 1941, Atlantic Monthly Pitchers and Catchers

Game, Idea

“…. Humankind, -- that all men anthropological come from the same source, with the same potentials, must have a potential equality in chance and opportunity and that is so right, I think, that posterity will look back upon what we are doing today in our domestic issues here. They will look back upon it, I think, with incredulity and they'll wonder what the issue was all about. I really think so. It's solved in baseball. It'll be solved educationally. It'll be solved everywhere in the course of time.”

Branch Rickey (1881–1965) American baseball player and coach

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNEo_mOi29U

Men, Thinking, Chance, Time

“I can't think of average. I have to go for the long ball. We have only Stargell to hit homers. You need more than one man. We have the best leadoff man in baseball in Matty Alou. He will get on base. We have to get the long hits.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "'Give Us Strollers, Not Swingers,' Shouts Shepard" by Charley Feeney, in The Sporting News (July 12, 1969), p. 23
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1969</big>

Thinking

“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.”

Casey Stengel (1890–1975) American baseball player and coach

As quoted in "L. M. Boyd" http://www.mediafire.com/view/ulp201hdoc2hs32/Screen%20Shot%202017-12-10%20at%203.10.58%20PM.png by Boyd, in The Sioux City Journal (April 20, 1981), p. A17

Hurt, Night

“Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible a plea as baseball in Italian.”

George Jean Nathan (1882–1958) American drama critic and magazine editor

Clinical Notes, George Jean, Nathan, January 1926, American Mercury magazine https://books.google.com/books?id=k330MmVjym8C&q=&quot;Opera+in+English+is+in+the+main+just+about+as+sensible+a+plea+as+baseball+in+Italian&quot;&pg=PA107#v=onepage,

“Baseball's owners must be the only U. S. citizens whose parents never told them the story of the boy who cried wolf. Their perennial cry of evaporating profits and imminent catastrophe in the presence of of rapidly growing revenues and escalating franchise values is hard to take seriously.”

Andrew Zimbalist (1947) American economist

Source: Baseball And Billions - Updated edition - (1992), Chapter 3, Franchise Finances, p. 47.

Boy, Parent, Wolf, Cry

“Major League Baseball is a national institution and we take our responsibilities seriously when it comes to how the game affects the lives of American youth.”

Bud Selig (1934) American baseball executive

Youth, Game

“In baseball, the true class enemy is not the boss, but the fan.”

Murray Kempton (1917–1997) American journalist

“He wanted to win so badly it killed him. But before it killed him, it elevated the game of baseball, at the Polo Grounds, to a grim spectacle of play-war. The analogy fits McGraw. He reminds you more of a battlefield general than he does a sportsman, and if he reminds you of a general, it would be a man who combined the fury of a Patton and the spectacular, yet knowledgeable, flair of MacArthur. Perhaps this desire to win occasionally overflowed its normal limits and became an obsession; perhaps the grimness darkened the sport at times. This was his weakness, for McGraw was not infallible; McGraw was not perfect. Perfection is lifeless, mechanical, uncaring. McGraw was never uncaring. If he was anything, he was a man who cared.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

Hano. Greatest Giants of Them All. p. 250.
Sports-related

War, Game, Knowledge, Sport

“The first baseball game ever televised was a battle for fourth place in the Ivy League between Columbia and Princeton on May 17, 1939.”

Andrew Zimbalist (1947) American economist

Source: Baseball And Billions - Updated edition - (1992), Chapter 7, The Media, p. 149.

Game

“This gathering of baseball's brightest stars will be an outstanding platform to grow the game internationally. As baseball continues to grow globally, more and more fans around the world have the opportunity to appreciate the grace and excitement of our great game. The first World Baseball Classic will bring a unique blend of enthusiasm to old and new fans alike.”

Bud Selig (1934) American baseball executive

World, Game, Star

“My eight years in Brooklyn gave me a new vision of America, or rather America gave me a new vision of a part of itself, Brooklyn. They were wonderful years. A community of over three million people, proud, hurt, jealous, seeking geographical, social, emotional status as a city apart and alone and sufficient. One could not live for eight years in Brooklyn and not catch its spirit of devotion to its baseball club, such as no other city in America equaled. Call it loyalty, and so it was. It would be a crime against a community of three million people to move the Dodgers. Not that the move was unlawful, since people have the right to do as they please with their property. But a baseball club in any city in America is a quasi-public institution, and in Brooklyn the Dodgers were public without the quasi.”

Branch Rickey (1881–1965) American baseball player and coach

On the relocation of the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles; quoted in Bob McGee, The Greatest Ballpark Ever: Ebbets Field and the Story of the Brooklyn Dodgers (Rutgers University Press, 2005, ISBN 0813536006), p. 294 http://books.google.ca/books?id=BOZyd7v1cDAC&pg=PA294&dq=%22public+without+the+quasi

People, Communication, Parting, Hurt

“There's one thing in baseball that always gets my goat and that's the intentional pass. It isn't fair to the batter. It isn't fair to his club. It's a raw deal for the fans and it isn't baseball. By "baseball," I mean good square American sportsmanship because baseball represents America in sport. If we get down to unfair advantages in our national game we are putting out a mighty bad advertisement.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

From "Babe Speaks His Mind Anent the Deliberate Pass," http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1920/08/14/page/7/ by Ruth (as told to Pegler), in The Chicago Tribune (August 14, 1920), p. 7; reprinted as "The Intentional Pass," https://books.google.com/books?id=SAAlxi-0EZYC&pg=PA32 in Playing the Game: My Early Years in Baseball, p. 32

Game, Sport

“I think the fans in Pittsburgh are the best in baseball. They've always been on my side, even when I'm going bad. I've made plenty of friends and I would not trade these people for anybody, anywhere.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Change of Pace"
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1963</big>

People, Thinking

“Almost all of fluid dynamics follows from a differential equation called the Navier-Stokes equation. But this general equation has not, in practice, led to solutions of real problems of any complexity. In this sense, the curve of a baseball is not understood; the Navier-Stokes equation applied to a base ball has not been solved.”

Robert Adair (physicist) (1924) Physicist and author

Source: The Physics Of Baseball (Second Edition - Revised), Chapter 2, The Flight Of The baseball, p. 22

Problem, Sense

“Our game today was produced by Ken Edmunson, directed by Bucky Guntz; Mike Weisman is the executive producer of NBC Sports, coordinating producer of baseball, Harry Coyle. The 1-1 pitch…He hits it to deep left field, LOOK OUT! DO YOU BELIEVE IT! IT'S GONE!!”

Bob Costas (1952) American sportscaster

Calling Sandberg's second game-tying home run against Sutter in the 10th inning. The Cubs went on to win 12-11 in the 11th inning. June 23, 1984.

Game, Sport

“I have had two lives: when I was born in Puerto Rico in 1935 [sic] and when I came to play baseball in Pittsburgh in 1955. I have two loves: my family – my mother, my father and my wife and three sons – and my fans.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Addressing reporters at post-game press conference on Roberto Clemente Day, as quoted in "Roberto Clemente's a Man of 2 Lives ... and 2 Loves" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zbYcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NWYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2327%2C2876682 by the Associated Press, in The Sarasota Herald-Tribune (July 26, 1970) Other, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1970</big>

Love, Family

“Baseball fans are pedants, there is no other kind.”

Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) English-American novelist and essayist

"Why Can't the Movies Play Ball?," The New York Times (1989-05-14)

“He's not really a difficult interview. You just have to catch the essence and rhythm of what he's saying. I'd ask him how baseball has changed over the past 25 years and he'd start telling me about his life as a dental student in Kansas City.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

On Casey Stengel, as quoted in "Loquacious Sportswriter: Arnold Hano Calls 'em as He Sees 'em in World of Sports" by Earl Gustkey, in The Los Angeles Times (April 23, 1970), p. D1
Sports-related

Life, Change, Past

“I was fortunate that my parents were bright, loving people who did everything they could to help me. I’m glad I was able to play baseball and soccer. I’m gratified that I was a smart boy who went to MIT. But looking back, I know there was anger and dislocation. I’m glad I’ve been able to overcome that, as many other immigrant kids have as well. But some haven’t. Some have dysfunctional and destructive families. Some are bitter. Some are blamers. Some are just crazy – call them sociopaths if you prefer — and their alienation has brought out the worst in them. Instead of filing a lawsuit when they felt wronged, as I have done, they bought guns. This is the nation we live in.”

Shiva Ayyadurai (1963) inventor

Immigrant Violence in America, A Big Problem http://vashiva.com/immigrant-violence-in-america-big-problem/ (July 6, 2016)

Love, People, Family, Boy

“If people got hit on the head by a baseball bat every week, pretty soon they would invent reasons why getting hit on the head with a baseball bat was a good thing.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky (1979) American blogger, writer, and artificial intelligence researcher

How to Seem (and Be) Deep http://lesswrong.com/lw/k8/how_to_seem_and_be_deep/ (October 2007)

People