Quotes About Baseball

There are two theories on hitting the knuckleball. Unfortunately, neither of them work.

There's no pressure in baseball. Pressure is when the doctor is getting ready to cut you, take your heart out, and put it on a table.

You can have the nine greatest individual ball players in the world, but if they don't play together the club won't be worth a dime.

Baseball is like driving, it's the one who gets home safely that counts.

I never thought home runs were all that exciting. I still think the triple is the most exciting thing in baseball. To me, a triple is like a guy taking the ball on his 1-yard line and running 99 yards for a touchdown

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

It took me seventeen years to get 3,000 hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course

Guessing what the pitcher is going to throw is eighty percent of being a successful hitter. The other twenty percent is just execution.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Once the record was mine, I had to use it like a Louisville Slugger. I believed, and still do, that there was a reason why I was chosen to break the record. I feel it's my task to carry on where Jackie Robinson left off, and I only know of one way to go about it. It's the only way I've ever had of dealing with things like fastballs and bigotry -- keep swinging at them.