Jim Bouton Quotes

Sheldon Kopp, the author and psychologist, wrote, There are no great men. If you have a hero, look again: you have diminished yourself in some way.

Doubleday's First Law, which states that if you throw a fastball with insufficient speed, someone will smack it out of the park with a stick.

The older they get, the better they were when they were younger.

Pete Rose gets banned for life for gambling while the drug addicts are allowed back after a year; and then they get extra chances after that. Baseball is saying, in effect, that gambling is worse than drugs. How do kids make sense out of that?

Don't ever think $7,000 isn't a lot of money in baseball. I've had huge arguments over a lot less.

Front offices are more interested in players that are far than players that are near.

How come nobody wants to argue with me? Is it because I'm always so right?

A ballplayer spends a good piece of his life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.

Statistics are about as interesting as first base coaches.

Jim Pagliaroni joined the club tonight and is going to be a welcome addition. He was describing a girl that one of the ballplayers had been out with and said, "It's hard to say exactly what she looked like. She was kind of Joe Torre with tits." This joke can only be explained with a picture of Joe Torre. But I'm not sure any exist. He dissolves camera lenses.

We were like farm animals compared to today's players who are treated like thoroughbreds.

When I approached him a second time with the cameras rolling, Munson grabbed the microphone and suggested I perform a physical impossibility.

Before the first workout, Joe Schultz, the manager (he's out of the old school, I think, because he looks like he's out of the old school - short, portly, bald, ruddy-faced, twinkly eyed), stopped by while I was having a catch. "How you feeling, Jim?" he asked. I wonder what he meant by that.

Forget goals. Value the process.

The author emphasizes the importance of self-forgetfulness when his statistics were marred by a bad outing. He forgot all of that outing to such an extent that he quipped, What was my name?

High school games would just as big a deal to me as any major league game.

The day he is out of baseball will be the day he starts to think about what comes next. By then, it may be too late.

Opening day
or Opening Day. Depending on how you feel about it.

I think I should be allowed to be only fair, or even mediocre, for a while.

The older they get, the better they get when they were younger

The pitching coach was bugged by the author's technique because he had never seen anyone do it before, and besides, it wasn't the coach's idea.

Back then, if you had a sore arm, the only people concerned were you and your wife. Now it's you, your wife, your agent, your investment counselor, your stockbroker, and your publisher.

The author relates that Mickey Mantle did not expect to play one day and showed up extremely hung over. He was nevertheless called on to pitch and smashed a towering home run to an enthusiastic ovation. He related to his teammates, Those people don't know how tough that was.

Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?

Religion is like baseball," said Steve. "Great game, bad owners.