Quotes from Hank Aaron

You can only milk a cow so long, then you're left holding the pail.

On the field, blacks have been able to be super giants. But, once our playing days are over, this is the end of it and we go back to the back of the bus again.

The pitcher has got only a ball. I've got a bat. So the percentage in weapons is in my favor and I let the fellow with the ball do the fretting.

I think what separates a superstar from the average ballplayer is that he concentrates just a little bit longer.

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.

I'm sure glad this isn't my home ball park.

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

I am very proud to be an American. This country has so much potential, I'd just like to see things better, or whatever, and I think it will be.

I never smile when I have a bat in my hands. That's when you've got to be serious.

My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.

It took me seventeen years to get three thousand hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course.

I don't see pitches down the middle anymore - not even in batting practice.

You visualize [pitches]. You see it in your head; you think it...I used to play every pitcher in my mind before I went to the ballpark. I started getting ready for ever game the moment I woke up.

I never smile when I have a bat in my hands. That's when you've got to be serious. When I get out on the field, nothing's a joke to me. I don't feel like I should walk around with a smile on my face.

I'm hoping someday that some kid, black or white, will hit more home runs than myself. Whoever it is, I'd be pulling for him.

Failure is a part of success.

Failure will never stand int he way of success if you learn from it.

There is no such thing as a bed of roses all your life.

Baseball needs me because it needs somebody to stir the pot, and I need it because it's my life. It's the means I have to make a little difference in the world.

People were not ready to accept me as a baseball player. The easiest part of that whole thing, chasing the Babe's record, was playing the game itself. The hardest thing was after the game was over, dealing with the press. They could never understand.

I had many, many, many death threats. I couldn't open letters for a long time, because they all had to be opened by either the FBI or somebody.

Didn't come up here to read. Came up here to hit.

I never doubted my ability, but when you hear all your life you're inferior, it makes you wonder if the other guys have something you've never seen before. If they do, I'm still looking for it.

Guessing what the pitcher is going to throw is 80% of being a successful hitter. The other 20% is just execution.