Ball Players Quotes

One of the hardest things for a ball player to do is to accept his role ~ Scottie Pippen

Sometimes a strikeout means that the slugger's girlfriend just ran off with the UPS driver. Sometimes a muffed ground ball means that the shortstop's baby daughter has a pain in her head that won't go away. And handicapping is for amateur golfers, not ballplayers. Pitchers don't ease off on the cleanup hitter because of the lumps just discovered in his wife's breast. Baseball is not life. It is a fiction, a metaphor. And a ballplayer is a man who agrees to uphold that metaphor as though lives were at stake.

Perhaps they are. I cherish a theory I once heard propounded by G.Q. Durham that professional baseball is inherently antiwar. The most overlooked cause of war, his theory runs, is that it's so damned interesting. It takes hard effort, skill, love and a little luck to make times of peace consistently interesting. About all it takes to make war interesting is a life. The appeal of trying to kill others without being killed yourself, according to Gale, is that it brings suspense, terror, honor, disgrace, rage, tragedy, treachery and occasionally even heroism within range of guys who, in times of peace, might lead lives of unmitigated blandness. But baseball, he says, is one activity that is able to generate suspense and excitement on a national scale, just like war. And baseball can only be played in peace. Hence G.Q.'s thesis that pro ball-players - little as some of them may want to hear it - are basically just a bunch of unusually well-coordinated guys working ~ David James Duncan

Owners want to make their team a winner so they can get more fans in the stands, and that's why they go after the best ball-players and pay 'em what they're worth. ~ Moses Malone

I've always studied business. Even when I was a ball player, I'd read business journals and the business sections of newspapers. ~ Magic Johnson

How many highly paid ball players have a level of wealth in this range? We believe only a tiny fraction. Why? Because most have a lavish lifestyle - and they can support such a lifestyle as long as they are earning a very high income. ~ Thomas J. Stanley

Meditation is a mysterious method of self-restoration.
It involves "shutting" out the outside world, and by that means sensing the universal "presence" which is, incidentally, absolute perfect peace.
It is basically an existential "time-out" - a way to "come up for a breath of air" out of the noisy clutter of the world.
But don't be afraid, there is nothing arcane or supernatural or creepy about the notion of taking a time-out. Ball players do it. Kids do it, when prompted by their parents. Heck, even your computer does it (and sometimes not when you want it to).
So, why not you?
A meditation can be as simple as taking a series of easy breaths, and slowly, gently counting to ten in your mind. ~ Vera Nazarian

But I was so wrapped up in sports growing up as a kid, that I think I was going to grow to be a pro ball player. But I found out real quick that was not going to happen. ~ Tim McGraw

When you heard Jimi Hendrix, you knew it was Jimi Hendrix. He introduced himself with his instrument. His attack to a guitar man, was, oh, something else! You think of one of the great American ball players, or one of the great fighters of the world, you know, that's the way he would attack any note on his guitar. ~ B.B. King

I was not able to understand how it could be right to pay an actor, or a singer, or an instrumentalist for entertaining the public and wrong to pay a ball player for doing exactly the same thing. ~ Al Spalding

There's a sense of aliveness that comes from connection, shared experience. And you see it in every place. You see it when ball players jump up and down, gather at home plate, hugging, and it's not just because they're winning, it's that shared moment, that feeling of - we enter the world alone, we leave alone. ~ Peter Guber

I remember the Chillicothe ballplayers grappling the Long Island ball players in a sixteen-inning game ended by darkness. And the shoulders of the Chillicothe players were a red smoke against the sundown and the shoulders of the Rock Island players were a yellow smoke against the sundown. And the umpire's voice was hoarse calling balls and strikes and outs and the umpire's throat fought in the dust for a song. ~ Carl Sandburg

I think there's an awful lot of ball players with great skills, but whether or not they're going to be on winning teams is not going to be answered until you see how they fit in to a team or a program. If they don't, it may be their fault or it may be their coaches. ~ Tex Winter

I wonder how many people in the Washington metropolitan area know just how terrific Senator MacGregor looks in his underwear."
"A select few."
"You must have thought about image projection, Senator." She ran a fingertip down the top of his foot. "You should consider doing some of those ads,you know,like the ball players...I never meet with foreign dignitaries without my B.V.D.'s."
"One can only be grateful you're not the Media Adviser."
"Stuffy,that's the whole problem." She dropped, full-length, on top of him. "Just think of the possibilities."
Alan slipped a hand under her robe. "I am."
"Discreetly placed ads in national magazines, thirty-minute spots in prime time." Shelby propped her elbows on his shoulders. "I'd definitely get my set fixed."
"Think of the trent it might start. Federal officials everywhere stripped down to their respective shorts."
Shelby's brows drew together as she pictured it. "Good God, it could precipitate a national calamity."
"Worldwide," Alan corrected. "Once the ball got rolling, there'd be no stopping it."
"All right, you've convinced me." She gave him a smacking kiss. "It's your patriotic duty to keep your clothes on. Except in here," she added with a gleam in her eye as she toyed with his waistband. ~ Nora Roberts

I appreciate this moment in time ... ball players and actors be knowing my rhymes ~ Common

It is dangerous to spring to obvious conclusions about baseball or, for that matter, ball players. Baseball is not an obvious game. ~ Roger Kahn

Ebbets Field was a narrow cockpit, built of brick and iron and concrete, alongside a steep cobblestone slope of Bedford Avenue. Two tiers of grandstand pressed the playing area from three sides, and in thousands of seats fans could hear a ball player's chatter, notice details of a ball player's gait and, at a time when television had not yet assaulted illusion with the Zoomar lens, you could see, you could actually see, the actual expression on the actual face of an actual major leaguer as he played. You could know what he was like! ~ Roger Kahn

It often seemed like we had become a nation where the only heroes were rock singers and ball players and that there were no large men of probity who could be called upon for the task. ~ Elliot Richardson

So that there is no misunderstanding from my perspective, I will suspend any player who tests positive for an illegal steroid. There will be no exceptions. The (players) union is aware of that and they accept it. ~ Bud Selig

His heartbeat seemed to be shaking him apart, like the impacts of a wrecking ball on an old building. ~ Tim Powers

And then came the nineties, when management, suddenly frightened that they had ceded control to the players, sought to restore baseball's profitability by 'running the game like a business.' ~ John Thorn

As much as we disliked the Yankees, fans and players alike, they were good for baseball. They consistently unsuccessful teams like the Browns, Senators, and A's paid a lot of their bills with those big crowds that poured through the gates when the Yankees came to town. ~ Bob Feller

But there isn't much else most club managers can do to push their teams up the table. After all, players matter much more. As Johan Cruijff said when he was coaching Barcelona, "If your players are better than your opponents, 90 percent of the time you will win." There cannot be many businesses where a manager would make such an extravagant claim. The chairman of General Motors does not say that the art of good management is simply hiring the best designers or the best production managers. ~ Simon Kuper

All you ever did was...WRECK ME...

-Wrecking Ball ~ Miley Cyrus

We have two trainers at the polo ground and do a mix of aerobics, gymnastics and stretches before we start riding. As polo players, it's very important for us to keep in shape. We do a bit of yoga and Pilates sometimes, too. ~ Facundo Pieres

MY LIFE IS a beautiful tragedy. A sad love story on an endless loop. The players may evolve and the setting may change, but it's always the same. Love. Pain. Death. Repeat. ~ S.L. Jennings

The lion landed in the snow well below the outcrop, at least thirty feet below where he'd been lying on the tree branch. The same as jumping from the roof of a three-story building. I saw him just as he hit, disappearing in an explosion of soft snow. Before I could picture how broken he would be, he erupted from the snow in another leap that covered twenty feet, straight down the side of the hill we'd toiled up. His body began to ball up in mid-air and he crashed down into the snow again, only to reappear a moment later, stretched out and bounding. In a few seconds he was into the bottom of the draw and out of sight. ~ Pete Fromm

'Authoring tools' are terrible; there is almost no software that can create closed captions for media players. And of course there is no training. TV captioning is bad enough, and this stuff is generally worse. ~ Joe Clark

I won player of the year and players' player, two cups and two championship medals, had a great time. ~ Paul Gascoigne

What do you imagine the American people would think of me if I wasted my time going to the ball game? ~ Grover Cleveland

Phil Jackson would fight his own players in practice. ~ Marv Albert

The Grand Ole Opry used to come on, and I used to watch that. They used to have some pretty heavy cats, heavy guitar players ~ Jimi Hendrix

I guess for major film industry players a film is a money making devise, so using formulas assures them that their investment will have returns. A lot of big studio films are created by formulas and committees, stripping away any individuality or personality from the work so that they could appeal to most everyone on there planet but to no one in particular. ~ Signe Baumane

The Spurs really are a family. They have a bunch of good guys that want to win, and the way they play is so unselfish. I'm looking forward to being involved in it. I feel that teams with players who are very close end up winning. ~ LaMarcus Aldridge

Why did Amery have the overwhelming urge to curl into a ball and cry? Because he'd just shown her that she wasn't a cold bitch in bed? He'd proven that she could burn hot and fast with a man who took the time to find her fuse before he prematurely lit the match. ~ Lorelei James

If I followed my better instincts right now, I would put this typewriter in the Volvo and drive to the home of the nearest politician
any politician
and hurl the goddamn machine through his front window ... flush the bugger out with an act of lunatic violence then soak him down with mace and run him naked down Main Street in Aspen with a bell around his neck and black lumps all over his body from the jolts of a high powered "Ball Buster" cattle prod. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

I felt a lump in my throat as the ball went in. ~ Terry Venables

This guy from L.A. sits down next to me, and he says "you like baseball?" I said, "Oh, man, I love baseball." So he goes "Did you know that if Jesus had played ball, he'd have been the greatest ball player ever?" Like I'm gonna argue with that logic. So I sat there for a second, and then I said "did you know that if Babe Ruth had been the Messiah, the Catholics would have beer and hot dogs at Communion?" He left. ~ Bill Engvall

It would be fantastic to have the two top-ranked players in the world playing out of the same club. ~ John Higgins

I think when you have spent the money that we have, it's bound to bring it's own pressure. The players have shown that they can handle that though.
(on Chelsea) ~ Frank Lampard

I know it's more five-star now than it was then, but it's still a difficult tour. In the same way as India and Pakistan players find it difficult coming to Australia. People sometimes have difficulty believing that. ~ Richie Benaud

I'm just trying to get as good as I can get, I am still young but there is always room to learn so I spend a lot of time watching players in other leagues to get better. ~ Steve Purdy

When Klara plucks a coin from inside someone's ear or turns a ball into a lemon, she hopes not to deceive but to impart a different kind of knowledge, an expanded sense of possibility. The point is not to negate reality, but to peel back its scrim, revealing reality's peculiarities and contradictions. The very best magic tricks, the kind Klara wants to perform, do not subtract from reality. They add. ~ Chloe Benjamin

I'd say I'm a bit antimadridista although I do not know where my future will be, but it's a team that I never liked. I get the impression that it is an arrogant club, about how the players are. Without humility, you cannot get anywhere. ~ Isco

As the skipping rope hit the pavement, so did the ball. As the rope curved over the head of the jumping child, the child with the ball caught the ball. Down came the ropes. Down came the balls. Over and over again. Up. Down. All in rhythm. All identical. Like the houses. Like the paths. Like the flowers ~ Madeleine L'Engle

What's a good investment? Go home from work early and spend the afternoon throwing a ball around with your son. ~ Ben Stein

When someone kisses someone or flushes the toilet
it is my other who sits in a ball and cries.
My other beats a tin drum in my heart.
My other hangs up laundry as I try to sleep.
My other cries and cries and cries
when I put on a cocktail dress. ~ Anne Sexton

I had some great pitchers while in St. Louis. At first, they only 'pitched' the ball fifty feet. They had an allowance of six bases on balls, which was neutralized to some extent by four strikes. Later on, the 'throw' became a free-for-all, overhand, or any style the pitcher chose. ~ Charles Comiskey

I thought of an old poker players' expression: If you look around the table and can't spot the sucker, the sucker is you. ~ Barry Eisler

Apparently the Republican base got radicalized first, and Democrats picked up the ball later. Or something. ~ Kevin Drum

The ego is kind of a big, unwieldy thing. It's not so easily tamed or subdued. ~ Alan Ball

I have made it totally clear to the players that my door will always be open. ~ Stuart Pearce

I've come to realize that I perform best when I'm letting my subconscious mind hit the ball and my conscious mind is otherwise occupied. ~ Al Geiberger

Playdate. (n) A Date arranged by adults in which young children are brought together, usually at the home of one of them, for the premeditated purpose of "playing". A feature of contemporary American upscale suburban life in which "neighborhoods" have ceased to exist, and children no longer trail in and out of "neighbor childrens" houses or play in "backyards". In the absence of sidewalks in newer "gated" coummunities, children cannot "walk" to playdates but must be driven by adults, usually mothers. A "playdate" is never initiated by the players (i.e., children), but only by their mothers.
In American-suburban social climbing through playdating, this is the chapter you've been awaiting. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

My ideal of womanhood has always been the pioneer woman who fought and worked at her husband's side. She bore the children, kept the home fires burning; she was the hub of the family, the
planner and the dreamer. ~ Lucille Ball

The trouble is, as you get older, the people you like die and are not replaced with others, so that it is easily possible to end up with no one at all to talk to, or at least, no one you would want to hear responding to whatever it is you might have ended up saying. ~ Jesse Ball

And he crosses the line with the ball almost mesmerically tied to his foot with a piece of string. ~ Ian Darke

Steve Jobs has a saying that A players hire A players; B players hire C
players; and C players hire D players. It doesn't take long to get to Z
players. This trickle-down effect causes bozo explosions in companies. ~ Guy Kawasaki

I ain't afraid to tell the world that it didn't take school stuff to help a fella play ball. ~ Shoeless Joe Jackson

To me, the team is more important than any individual member of the squad, and the players have to realise that and accept that my priority is to pick a side with the best possible chance of winning each match. ~ Gerard Houllier

I think the Americans don't understand that this is a complicated new ball game. People everywhere have seen that a few determined people who were not scared to die can create a huge upheaval within a major superpower. ~ Imran Khan

Producing is a wonderful foil to being an actor: acting being largely about getting out of my head, being present, a little irresponsible, whilst producing is the polar opposite. You need other players to act; you can't act in a void, but producing is about making something out of nothing - conjuring a thought or an idea into reality. ~ Juliet Rylance

The future belongs to neither the conduit or content players, but those who control the filtering, searching and sense-making tools we will rely on to navigate through the expanses of cyberspace. ~ Paul Saffo

When I gave up me, I became more. I became a captain, a leader, a better person and I came to understand that life is a team game ... And you know what? ... I've found most people aren't team players. They don't realize that life is the only game in town. Someone should tell them. It has made all the difference in the world to me. ~ Don Mattingly

through the screen door I find all three of my boys throwing a ball around the yard with Cooper. My heart bursts in my chest. Just explodes. It physically hurts to feel so much all at once. It's like I'm staring at a movie of what my life - our life - could have been. ~ Heather M. Orgeron

If you want to play quicker you can start running faster, but it's the ball that decides the speed of the game. ~ Johan Cruijff