Ballplayer Quotes

Im not an Athlete, Im a ballplayer ~ John Kruk

The Babe was a great ballplayer, sure, but Cobb was even greater. Babe could knock your brains out, but Cobb would drive you crazy. ~ Tris Speaker

Baseball shaded my entire outlook on life, because that's how I first saw the world. I looked at everything, even today, through what I learned about the game. Like pacing yourself, focusing yourself, preparing yourself for what you want to do, keeping yourself healthy for the game. I do all that through the eyes of a ballplayer. ~ Kurt Russell

A pitcher is not a ballplayer. ~ Christy Mathewson

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

(Bill) Terry, you can ask for more money in the winter and do less in the summer than any ballplayer I know. ~ John McGraw

The San Francisco police force was deeply implicated in the murders of Moscone and Milk. Dan White was not carrying out SFPD orders that morning in city hall, but he was carrying out the department's will. He was no longer on the force, but he was one of them: their star ballplayer, their political representative, their brother. He knew all about the cops' murderous feelings toward the city's liberal leadership. He felt the same way. They had the will, he had the willpower. ~ David Talbot

In that case Mr. Barrow, Mr. Gehrig is a very underpaid ballplayer. ~ Joe DiMaggio

You can look at everything from pre-Heisman to post-Heisman, and I think that's why it ranks up at the top, because before then, I didn't even think I was good enough to be a professional ballplayer. ~ Barry Sanders

Carl Furillo was pure ballplayer. In his prime he stood six feet tall and weighed 190 pounds and there was a fluidity to his frame you seldom see, among such sinews. His black hair was thick, and tightly curled. His face was strong and smooth. He had the look of a young indomitable centurion ... I cannot imagine Carl Furillo in his prime as anything other than a ballplayer. Right field in Brooklyn was his destiny. ~ Roger Kahn

I refuse to be molded into some stereotypical ballplayer that has no interests, really, no life, no depth, no intelligence. ~ Barry Zito

During my 18 years I came to bat almost 10,000 times. I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times. You figure a ballplayer will average about 500 at bats a season. That means I played seven years without ever hitting the ball. ~ Mickey Mantle

Yeah. No matter what Coach does or doesn't do. Because ... I'm going on my terms. Even if by some miracle he recommends me for the scholarship, I'm not taking it."
That surprises her. "I don't get it."
"That's why I had no choice but to let that pitch go by. I had to prove to myself that I could live without baseball. I can't go to college on their terms. I can't be the ballplayer first and the student second, and if they're giving me an athletic scholarship, believe me - that's what it would be. Athlete-scholar, not the other way around. No one can convince me otherwise.
"So, yeah. I'll have to take out student loans. I'll have to work my ass off. But that's OK. ~ Barry Lyga

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. ~ Jim Bouton

I don't know what Joe (DiMaggio)
wanted (in regards to being called 'the greatest living ballplayer'), but I don't have a problem, if he wanted to do that. He was my hero. Joe
was the best all-around player. Joe
was the best. I only played against him once, in the '51 Series. ~ Willie Mays

But I want you to know that what I'm doing here I'm doing as a ballplayer, a major league ballplayer. ~ Curt Flood

I always could hit, but fielding I had to work at. I took as much pride in fielding as hitting. I became a complete ballplayer. I knew when to take the extra base. I knew about the outfielder hitting the cutoff man. I knew when and how to bunt. I knew when to hit-and-run. ~ George Kell

If you can do that - if you run, hit, run the bases, hit with power, field, throw and do all other things that are part of the game - then you're a good ballplayer. ~ Willie Mays

Any ballplayer that don't sign autographs for little kids ain't an American. He's a communist. ~ Rogers Hornsby

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. ~ David James Duncan

A great ballplayer is a player who will take a chance. ~ Branch Rickey

I'm proud of everything that I've accomplished since I was a little boy. That was my dream - to be a ballplayer. I didn't dream to win so many Gold Gloves, or Silver Bats or play in All-Star Games or World Series. I was just dreaming to play the game. ~ Roberto Alomar

A young ballplayer looks on his first spring training trip as a stage struck young woman regards the theater. ~ Christy Mathewson

I'm a ballplayer. I know how hard the game is ... and anybody that makes it in the Hall of Fame, I support. They become a member of our special fraternity. ~ George Brett

Besides, he was also a hell of a ballplayer. THE END ~ Joseph Bottum

I am just a ballplayer on vacation. Why are these things happening to me ? ~ Hal Graff

Man, I've got a Rolls-Royce. Big house. Limo. All those things. This is why every kid's dream is to be a major-league ballplayer. ~ Lou Whitaker

I want everybody to feel he has a chance to get into a game when he comes to the ballpark. I play guys when I want to so they'll be ready when I have to. I don't consider myself a motivator of players. I think it's an insult to a ballplayer to have to be motivated. ~ Gene Mauch

I haven't put on a baseball uniform since about age 12. It's like I'm wearing a Halloween costume. I'm pretending to be a ballplayer. ~ Ken Fox

I want to be remembered as a ballplayer who gave all I had to give. ~ Roberto Clemente

I'm just a ballplayer with one ambition, and that is to give all I've got to help my ball club win. I've never played any other way. ~ Joe DiMaggio

I don't want to be Babe Ruth. He was a great ballplayer. I'm not trying to replace him. The record is there and damn right I want to break it, but that isn't replacing Babe Ruth. ~ Roger Maris

Ty Cobb was still fighting the Civil War, and as far as he was concerned, we were all damn Yankees. But who knows, if he hadn't had that terrible persecution complex, he never would have been about the best ballplayer who ever lived. ~ Sam Crawford

The biggest thrill a ballplayer can have is when your son takes after you. That happened when my Bobby was in his championship Little League game. He really showed me something. Struck out three times. Made an error that lost the game. Parents were throwing things at our car and swearing at us as we drove off. Gosh, I was proud. ~ Bob Uecker

I suppose we could make it work with a young man living in the house. But there would have to be rules--"
"Whatever they are, we'll follow them."
"There can be no hanky-panky--"
"Puh-lease!" Who said hanky-panky these days? "He won't be the one--"
"The one?" Mom asked, her eyes narrowing.
Why don't I just blow it here and now?
"We're just giving him a room, Mom. I promise. I wouldn't be interested in him if he turned out to be Johnny Depp." I gave an exaggerated eye roll. "Well, okay, if he was Johnny Depp, I'd be interested. But seriously, what are the odds?"
Mom's mouth quirked at that, because she had a thing for Johnny Depp, too.
"All right, then," she said, "you can have your ballplayer for the summer."
Yes! Deep inside I was doing a happy dance, but on the outside I did nothing more than smile. If my parents figured out the real plan was to get a boyfriend, they absolutely wouldn't go for it. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

As a ballplayer, (Dizzy) Dean was a natural phenomenon, like the Grand Canyon or the Great Barrier Reef. Nobody ever taught him baseball and he never had to learn. He was just doing what came naturally when a scout named Don Curtis discovered him on a Texas sandlot and gave him his first contract. ~ Red Smith

Roger Maris was as good a man and as good a ballplayer as there ever was. ~ Mickey Mantle

I think what separates a superstar from the average ballplayer is that he concentrates just a little bit longer. ~ Hank Aaron

On two legs, Mickey Mantle would have been the greatest ballplayer who ever lived. ~ Nellie Fox

When I was a kid growing up in Cleveland, I believed - completely, wholeheartedly, without reservation or pause - that the Cleveland Indians were named to honor a Native American ballplayer named Louis Sockalexis, who played for Cleveland in the late 19th Century. ~ Joe Posnanski

I'm not saying that they were Einsteins; they were marginal students. But every ballplayer whoever touched me has moved up his station in life. And the players moved up my station. ~ Al McGuire

My father helped me become a ballplayer and take the good with the bad. ~ Dwight Gooden

There ain't much to being a ballplayer, if you're a ballplayer. ~ Honus Wagner

I thought I raised a ballplayer. You're nothing but a coward and a quitter. ~ Mickey Mantle

I was a ballplayer, but only for a limited time. I grew up playing in Wisconsin. It's a very sports-centric part of the country that I grew up in and I played a lot of sports, but baseball first and foremost. I played through high school. I was a middle-infielder. ~ Chad Harbach

To play 18 years in Yankee Stadium is the best thing that could ever happen to a ballplayer. ~ Mickey Mantle