Quotes About Baseball

I'll take anyway to get into the Hall of Fame. If they want a batboy, I'll go in as a batboy.

I'm not thinking home run, I just want to put a good swing on the ball. When you go looking for home runs, you get off of your swing. So you don't think of homers when you go up to the plate.

I heard that in the United States the level of baseball was the highest in the world. So it was only natural that I would want to go there, as a baseball player.

The Easy Company men began throwing grenades at the retreating enemy. Compton had been an All-American catcher on the UCLA baseball team. The distance to the fleeing enemy was about the same as from home plate to second base. Compton threw his grenade on a straight line—no arch—and it hit a German in the head as it exploded. He

Baseball, to me, is still the national pastime because it is a summer game. I feel that almost all Americans are summer people, that summer is what they think of when they think of their childhood. I think it stirs up an incredible emotion within people.

The difference between the old ballplayer and the new ballplayer is the jersey. The old ballplayer cared about the name on the front. The new ballplayer cares about the name on the back.

Leon, no offense, but you don't exactly look like a hockey player." "I told 'em I was a goalie. That's where they put the guy who can't skate, right? Just like in baseball when they put the worst player at catcher.

I also developed an interest in sports, and played in informal games at a nearby school yard where the neighborhood children met to play touch football, baseball, basketball and occasionally, ice hockey.

The guy comes up to the plate, there's always a chance where he can get a grand slam and everybody forgets about all the times he missed.

I don't want to be a slap hitter, but be a dangerous hitter in the lineup and want people to come right at me.

I never wanted to be a slap hitter. It would hurt my pride if someone called me one. I wanted to be a guy who could do everything.

Sleep is huge. That's your biggest way of recovering. In baseball, it's such a hard sleep schedule during the season, but you try to do the best you can. Because you can take all the protein drinks, you can do all these things, but your recovery is your sleep.

The day I pitched, I would drink either 'cause I was celebrating or I lost and couldn't sleep.

I mean, in A ball, there were five of us in a two-bedroom apartment. In Double-A, I think there were like eight of us in a four-bedroom house. There's a lot of that going on so that guys can... and the whole time, you're sleeping on air mattresses and you're using Rubbermaid bins as furniture.

Later, I could take something off my slider and I could make my fastball sink, so I really had four pitches.

You never hit a good slider or curveball; you just try to go after the mistakes.

When you pinch-hit, you know you're getting their best guys, and usually it's a reliever and a guy that's got a really good slider or a really good fastball.

My slider's been very, very good to me.

Everyone wants to talk about my slider, and how effective it is, but it really can't be without fastball command. It starts with my fastball, even if the slider is the pitch I want to get to.

I learned the slider out of desperation.

Sliding headfirst is the safest way to get to the next base, I think, and the fastest. You don't lose your momentum, and there's one more important reason I slide headfirst, it gets my picture in the paper.

I think the beard plays a slight factor to my presence on the mound. It's kind of part of the persona now. Everyone in Chicago embraced it, so I got to keep it. I can't ditch it now.

I never had the slightest desire to be a major league manager, and all knew it. But Ban Johnson, Bob Hedges, and Jimmy McAleer persuaded me that the Browns were in a sort of a jam, and it was up to me, as an old standby, to do what I could.

Baseball is a slow, boring, complex, cerebral game that doesn't lend itself to histrionics. You 'take in' a baseball game, something odd to say about a football or basketball game, with the clock running and the bodies flying.