Quotes About Baseball

Some of us who worked with Bud for years in New York focus on all he accomplished as commissioner, and we forget, lose track of the fact, that he was the person that saved baseball in Milwaukee.

They weren't happy with us, but they also knew that Milwaukee was an incredible baseball town. The Braves were the first National League team to draw 2 million fans. The fans were so passionate. But it was an uphill battle.

And one day I hit one up the middle. I thought it was going to hit him right between the eyes. It missed him, and the ball was in the outfield by the time he ducked. At that point I think we all agreed that dad was done throwing me batting practice.

Bud Selig had preserved baseball in Milwaukee, a feat almost as unlikely as bringing it back in the first place. "Of all the marvelous things that have happened to me, including becoming commissioner of baseball, that will always be my proudest accomplishment because the odds were stacked tremendously against us," Selig said. "There were many times when I wondered if it would happen.

I lived near him during my time with the Brewers and I would stop by his house sometimes to drop something off, and he'd be cutting his grass, cleaning the pool, or playing with his kids. He was just a normal Wisconsin guy, who happened to be one of the best baseball players on the planet.

The joke in our family was that when I made an out, he'd move to a new location. If I got a hit, he'd stay where he was. We laughed about that a lot because I said that he probably sat in every seat in County Stadium because I made a lot of outs in the big leagues.

I didn't play a lot. Bill Foley was there. He was a catcher from New York who got drafted by the Brewers. I played some left field, I was the designated hitter, I caught. I remember hitting my first collegiate home run at The Citadel. It went out to right field. To this day I remember circling the bases and I don't think my feet touched the ground.

When I got out of baseball, the first thing I did was enroll in Carroll College (now Carroll University) to finish the degree I started at Clemson. Fortunately, all of my credits transferred. I had one year left and went back full time. I think I needed 24 or 26 credits. I commuted back and forth from Hales Corners to Waukesha and got my degree.

Bobby Hughes, the Brewers' catcher who had gone to Matt's alma mater, USC, hit a high fly ball to left field, and it hit a clock at the top edge of the fence. It almost went out of the park. Vasgersian was doing the call, and his voice went up in anticipation of a home run, and without batting an eye, he said, "Bobby Hughes just got clock-blocked!" It was one of the funnier moments of my time with him.

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During the Brewers' playoff run in 2011, Ryan Braun stumbled rounding third on what would have been an inside-the-park home run. He got to third base, and coach Eddie Sedar was waving him around and Braunie got so excited that he just lost control, stumbled, and did a face-plant between third and home. He was tagged out, which was bad, but he drove in a run, and the Brewers won the game so everybody laughed about

Every once in a while, when the Brewers are in a losing streak, Bob Uecker will pull out a secret weapon. It's a tape made by a sound effects company of a man having an explosive—and exceedingly long—bowel movement. Sophomoric? Yes. But it gets guys laughing so hard that a couple of losses or a 0-for-12 streak doesn't seem so daunting.

On July 4, 2015, Brewers center fielder Carlos Gomez left a gift for his counterpart Billy Hamilton. As the bottom of the third inning ended, Gomez left a pile of gum and a note for Hamilton that read, "I see you dropped all your gum so I brought you some more." TV cameras captured Gomez leaving the gum, Hamilton finding it, and both men laughing as a result.

started out as a pitcher but changed course after working out for Braves pitching coach Jonny Cooney at County Stadium. "I was throwing for about 15 minutes," Uecker said. "I thought I was doing pretty good, but Cooney said, 'Alright, now let me see your good fastball.' I said, 'I've been throwing my good fastball.' And, he told me—this is no joke—'Well, then I recommend you get a job.

Ueck's job was protect Bob Kuban, and the band that was playing in left field. They took a break. Roger Craig said, 'Ueck, why don't you grab a tuba?' He dropped his glove, grabbed the tuba, and caught about five balls in it. I remember [Cardinals general manager] Bob Howsam sent him a bill for $116 after the World Series for damage to the tuba.

They'd never seen anything like it." Uecker recalls the incident, which was captured in photos. "I was better with the tuba than I was with a glove," he said. The jokes about his career flow easily, but Uecker is proud of his time as a player and the respect that he has earned from players of his era and today.

It is the life-affirming genius of baseball that the short can pummel the tall, the rotund can make fools of the sleek, and no matter how far down you find yourself in the bottom of the ninth you can always pull out a miracle.

It's the mathematical potential for a single game to last forever, in a suspended world where no clock rules the day, that aligns baseball as much with the dead as the living.

Baseball is the only thing beside the paper clip that hasn't changed

That's the true harbinger of spring, not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of a bat on the ball.

That's the true harbinger of spring, not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of a bat on a ball.

The season starts too early and finishes too late and there are too many games in between.

Every baseball crowd, like every theatre audience, has its own distinctive attitude and atmosphere.

I have discovered in twenty years of moving around a ball park, that the knowledge of the game is usually in inverse proportion to the price of the seats.