Quotes from Hank Aaron

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

I don't want them to forget Ruth, I just want them to remember me!

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.

History has a way of doing that. People appreciate it more the longer it lasts.

Sure, this country has a black president, but when you look at a black president, President Obama is left with his foot stuck in the mud from all of the Republicans with the way he's treated. We have moved in the right direction, and there have been improvements, but we still have a long ways to go in the country.

I have always felt that although someone may defeat me, and I strike out in a ball game, the pitcher on the particular day was the best player. But I know when I see him again, I'm going to be ready for his curve ball. Failure is a part of success. There is no such thing as a bed of roses all your life. But failure will never stand in the way of success if you learn from it.

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.

I looked for the same pitch my whole career, a breaking ball. All of the time. I never worried about the fastball. They couldn't throw it past me, none of them.

We are not that far removed from when I was chasing the record. If you think that, you are fooling yourself.... The bigger difference is that back then they had hoods. Now they have neckties and starched shirts.

Most of all, I pray that no one ever again, in any walk of life, has to go through what I did.

After I hit the home run, I went back to left field, and I was standing in my position to catch a fly ball, and Donald Davis, my traveling secretary, was running down the left field line. He was telling me the President was on the telephone. And I said, "Well fine, Donald, but what do you want me to do? Stop the ball game?" I said, "Just put the President on hold, and I'll be right with him."

Baseball is a lot like the ivy-covered wall of Wrigley Field--it gives off a great appearance, but when you run into it, you discover the bricks underneath. At times, it seems that we're dealing with a group of men who aren't much different than others we've all run into over the years, except they wear neckties instead of robes and hoods.

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

I was being thrown to the wolves. Even though I did something great, nobody wanted to be a part of it. I was so isolated. I couldn't share it. For many years, even after Jackie Robinson, baseball was so segregated, really. You just didn't expect us to have a chance to do anything. Baseball was meant for the lily-white.

You know what the hardest thing is? What nobody wants to understand -- is me. People want their memories of me to be my memories of me. But you know what? They're not.

When I was a young kid growing up in Mobile, Alabama, I chased a dream and found it and played baseball for 23 years. I see these young kids coming along now and they are chasing their dreams. It just so happens that their dream costs a little bit more than mine did. I'm hoping they catch it and that they're able to do the things they want to do in life.

I tell young people -- including my granddaughter -- there is no short cut in life. You have to take it one step at a time and work hard. And you have to give back.

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

The most important thing in my career out of the 23 years I played is I never struck out 100 times. Getting the base hits was the greatest thrill of my life.

Roger Maris lost his hair the season he hit sixty-one, I still have all my hair, but when it's over, I'm going home to Mobile and fish for a long time.

[My father] didn't make much money, and I tell a lot of people, you know, I was a vegetarian before people knew what a vegetarian was. That's all I ate was vegetables.

There's only one way to break the color line. Be good. I mean, play good. Play so good that they can't remember what color you were before the season started.

The way I see it, it's a great thing to be the man who hit the most home runs, but it's a greater thing to be the man who did the most with the home runs he hit. So as long as there's a chance that maybe I can hammer out a little justice now and then, or a little opportunity here and there, I intend to do as I always have -- keep swinging.

The only thing I can say is that I had a rough time with it. I don't talk about it much. It still hurts a little bit inside, because I think it has chipped away at a part of my life that I will never have again. I didn't enjoy myself. It was hard for me to enjoy something that I think I worked very hard for. God had given me the ability to play baseball, and people in this country kind of chipped away at me. So, it was tough. And all of those things happened simply because I was a black person.