Quotes About Baseball

The toughest thing in hitting shouldn't be deciding when to swing. It is, for me, deciding when not to swing. You should be swinging from the time you get into the batter's box until something says don't swing.

I consider Billy Keeler, Mike Tiernan, Ed Delihanty and Larrie La Joie the toughest hitters I had to pitch to, but I did not dread them. Remember, Hughie Duffy was a member of our team, so I did not face him. In my opinion, Duffy was the greatest hitter.

The call that always seemed the toughest to me was the slide and tag play at second. You can see it coming, but you don't know which way the runner is going to slide, where the throw is going to be, and how the fielder is going to take the throw.

In days of yore, Opening Day of the baseball season was special, signifying that spring had come at last. Today, however, Opening Day sort of dribbles into existence, and the spiritual start of spring now belongs to the Masters golf tournament, where the azaleas and magnolias and dogwood bloom.

In America, we have three major sports - baseball, football and basketball. They get the most coverage. Then there's things like golf which mop up most of what is left. But track and field? We are way at the bottom of the totem pole.

I offer a proven track record in the big leagues that can hit left-handers or right-handers.

My first job was as a groundskeeper at the local ballpark in the town where I grew up. There was a lot of down time, and I got to drive tractor, so it was pretty good gig. I've also taught creative writing, dabbled in reviewing and journalism, and toiled as a screenwriter.

'The Sandberg Game' comes up all the time. Fans tell me where they were. They were driving down the highway, they were in the bleachers, they were downtown listening on the radio, they were on the farm on a tractor. I've heard all the stories where people have been. They're just amazed by the ending of the game and the thrill of it.

Pop flies, in a sense, are just a diversion for a second baseman. Grounders are his stock trade.

I was glad to play in the Negro Leagues. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

I don't know why you would trade a stud pitcher.

Cuban athletes represent the most expensive human cargo on earth. They are sitting on over a billion dollars of human capital if these boxers and baseball players would come over to any other field or ring in the world and begin to ply their trade.

President Bush left for Canada today to attend a trade summit. Reportedly, the trade summit got off to an awkward start when the president pulled out his baseball cards.

The Giants are looking for a trade but I don't think Atlanta wants to depart with a quality player.

Baseball cannot be learned as a trade. It begins with the sport of the schoolboy, and though it may end in the professional, I am sure there is not a single one of these who learned the game with the expectation of making it a business. There have been years in the life of each during which he must have ate and drank and dreamed baseball.

I had never been to the playoffs, and it was exciting. The fans went through the roof. They were excited about the whole team. It was great to be traded to a city like Chicago, which was a lot like Boston.

When I was traded from the Oakland A's to the Atlanta Braves before the 2005 season, a childhood dream was realized. I grew up a Braves fan just a few hours south of Atlanta, and it was hard for me to believe that I was going to actually play for the Atlanta Braves and legendary manager Bobby Cox.

The Red Sox believe what's written. If it's written that I should be traded, more times than not, that's what ends up happening. Look at the people who've gotten traded around here. It's not their doing.

I only had one player in my 33 years of sports that couldn't be traded. He wore No. 23 - and 45 when he played baseball.

If you reach a point where your entire farm system is in the big leagues, you've traded a couple guys for players who are now in the big leagues, you know what you do? You start over in your farm system, and you keep developing the talented players you have.

I had told my wife that I was thinking of retiring at the end of the year. I was thinking I didn't want to do it anymore, but then I was traded to the Dodgers.

I play baseball. I don't deal with trades, free agency, any of that stuff.

It's best not to think about winning or losing trades anyway, because the best ones work out for both teams. But, as a rule, if you're the team that's selling - if you're out of it, and you're trading with a team that's in it - you usually have the pick of just about their whole farm system, with a few exclusions.

As American as an apple is and as American as baseball is, they don't go together. You can't be chewing an apple at a baseball game. You've got to let go of the diet that day.