Top 99 Great Baseball Quotes
#1. The great Baseball Hall-of-Famer Tom Seaver put it perfectly: In baseball, my theory is to strive for consistency, not to worry about the numbers. If you dwell on statistics you get shortsighted; if you aim for consistency, the numbers will be there at the end.
Jeff Olson
#2. We are fortunate and blessed to have a partner of Harvey Schiller's stature, who shares our vision for the future of the Dodgers, the city of Los Angeles and our great baseball fans throughout the world.
Steve Garvey
#3. I love to be in the ballpark. I love to just go in and enjoy a great baseball game, a great pitchers' duel.
Magic Johnson
#4. My kid was a great baseball player. I thought I had it made. Front-row seats at Yankee Stadium. Then he turned sixteen and wanted to be a rapper.
James Caan
#5. Fifteen minutes in the majors means you're a great baseball player," said Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland - who never got his fifteen minutes above the Triple-A level. "People just can't understand how good you have to be to get there at all.
John Feinstein
#6. We win if the world is convinced of two things, that you are a fine gentleman, and a great baseball player.
Branch Rickey
#7. That's what's great about baseball: some people are exceptional at the game, but still, even people that aren't very athletic, like me - I played Little League! It's one of those games in sports where even if you're not the greatest, you can still play.
Tom Guiry
#8. The great thing about baseball is, I've heard a hundred statements beginning, 'The great thing about baseball is.
Jon Sindell
#9. But Little League can be a great experience for kids, as long as they want to play
and don't play to bring their parents glory.
Yogi Berra
#10. Through SCP Auctions, the Garvey family will also continue to share our great love for baseball by donating time and dollars to youth baseball programs.
Steve Garvey
#11. Arizona was the best place. I like the competition in baseball, and the football program has been great for the past five years. I think I'll be playing as a freshman in both sports, and I think I can play with them.
Terry Vaughn
#12. In life, so many things are taken for granted, but one thing I can honestly say is that I took every day, enjoyed the game of putting on that uniform and playing the great game of baseball.
Wade Boggs
#13. We're proud of Venezuela and Venezuelan baseball. People in America don't realize it, but we've got 25, 30 million people here, and so many of us love baseball. This is a great place to look for talent.
Johan Santana
#14. You want to be queen of the mountain, you take that crown and wear it with pride. It's gonna look great on you. Me? I'm more of a baseball cap kind of guy.
Louisa Edwards
#15. In August of 1921, one of the great American combinations was unveiled - even better than the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This fortuitous new blend was radio and baseball.
George Vecsey
#16. It's no secret that the great American pastime is no longer baseball. Now it's sanctimony.
Nathan Hill
#17. You need to have camaraderie in the clubhouse. Wherever you're working, be it a baseball team or at a business, you want to walk in there and say, 'Geez, it's great to be at work. Let's go get 'em,' as opposed to walking in there knowing there's going to be a commotion.
Pat Gillick
#18. Baseball gives you every chance to be great. Then it puts every pressure on you to prove you haven't got what it takes.
Joe Garagiola
#20. I think that's why I like baseball. There's something great about it - you're young, the pitcher's young and he's got this great arm, and he doesn't really realize anything about strategy.
Bruce McCulloch
#21. It'll be a great day when the seniors have all the baseball caps they need and the Pentagon bombs Gilligan's Island.
Jesse Jackson
#22. Yes, we've seen it all before. And yes, those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it. But no, the sky is not falling - baseball is such a great game that neither the owners nor the players can kill it. After some necessary carnage, market forces will prevail.
John Thorn
#23. I think video games are a huge part of our society now. Having kids play baseball video games helps them understand and love the game. It could actually push them to get out there and play the game for real. That's great for the sport.
Justin Verlander
#24. The fundamental truth: a baseball game is nothing but a great slow contraption for getting you to pay attention to the cadence of a summer day.
Michael Chabon
#25. Definitely if you're an athlete, you're gonna be having all the baseball fame you can have. That's the great thing about baseball and sports. You can measure ability.
John Leguizamo
#26. Dad played with me a great deal, as dads should do, and our chief sport was baseball. He bought me a hardball when I was three years old, and he used to sit in a rocker on the front porch while I sat on the grass in the yard, and we'd play catch by the hour.
Mordecai Brown
#27. Ladies and gentlemen, the great number seven, Mickey Mantle.
Mel Allen
#28. In cricket, as in no other game, a great master may well go back to the pavilion scoreless ... In no other game does the law of averages get to work so potently, so mysteriously.
Neville Cardus
#29. This is the second day now that I do not know the result of the juegos he thought. But I must have confidence and I must be worthy of the great DiMaggio who does all things perfectly even with the pain of the bone spur in his heel.
Ernest Hemingway,
#30. If I walked back into the booth in the year 2025, I don't think it would have changed much. I think baseball would be played and managed pretty much the same as it is today. It's a great survivor.
Ernie Harwell
#31. Baseball is great because anything can happen through the ninth inning.
Richard M. Nixon
#32. Thank you ... adjustable baseball caps with no logo on the front and mesh netting in the back, for being a great way to say, 'Hi, I'm over 80 years old.'
Jimmy Fallon
#33. Humbled by the fact that never in a million years would I ever thought that I would be on the same stage with all these great Hall of Famers and enshrined to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Wade Boggs
#34. (Al) Lopez is a great believer in speed and hustle, in the go-go style of baseball. No other manager is so determined a foe of stodgy baseball, lack of hustle and slipshod practices and so powerful an advocate of the unexpected.
Nellie Fox
#35. I've felt some great feelings on the baseball field ... in front of 50,000 people and millions on TV ... but the feeling you get when you give a kid a chance, that is a hundred times greater than that feeling.
Cal Ripken Jr.
#36. Babe Ruth made a great mistake when he gave up pitching.
Tris Speaker
#38. Stay away from drugs and alcohol. Listen to your moms and dads. In this great country of ours you do whatever you set your mind to. Make us proud of you.
Mickey Mantle
#39. And wasn't that a great moment in baseball history," Holly Grace replied with withering sarcasm. "Helen Keller pitching and Little Stevie Wonder catching.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips
#40. I had a great time with baseball growing up. I was lucky to grow up with it and to learn.
Nick Johnson
#41. Power is a big thing in baseball. It can't be cheapened. That is, a fellow has it or hasn't. It isn't a fluke or great accomplishment, like a perfect game. When Mantle connects, it's a tape-measure job. Nobody who ever lived has more power than Mantle.
Gabe Paul
#42. Hey, it's been a great ride for me, a great life. Everything I have I owe to baseball. Baseball owes me nothin'. Ain't nobody has to give me nothin'. I would be embarrassed if I had a day somewhere. I don't want no day. I want friends, to live my life the way I wanna live it.
Don Zimmer
#43. The great trouble with baseball today is that most of the players are in the game for the money and that's it, not for the love of it, the excitement of it, the thrill of it.
Ty Cobb
#44. I SEND YOU MY HEARTY CONGRATULATIONS UPON BEGINNING THE THIRTIETH YEAR OF YOUR GREAT CAREER AS MANAGER OF THE NEW YORK GIANTS, IN WHICH YOU HAVE DONE SO MUCH TO UPHOLD THE TRADITIONS OF CLEAN SPORTSMANSHIP IN THE MOST BELOVED NATIONAL GAME.
Herbert Hoover
#46. Baseball must be a great game to survive the fools who run it.
Bill Terry
#47. New York is great, but the New England fans are probably the most knowledgeable and ardent fans, and not just in baseball, but all sports. But Red Sox Nation is Red Sox Nation.
Dick Williams
#48. Going out and playing football or baseball with the boys, when I was a tomboy, was a great way to learn about winning and losing, and most girls didn't have that experience.
Hillary Clinton
#49. I got cast playing the best baseball player anybody's ever seen. I don't know how to play any sport, including baseball, but I trained really hard. They had these great coaches, and they started saying, "Wow, you have some like really untapped athletic ability."
Geena Davis
#50. The chance to be a general manager in major-league baseball and for a franchise as storied as this one, probably as storied as the Giants, is great.
Ned Colletti
#51. Yeah," he says. "We've been friends since kindergarten. Funniest guy I know," Matt says with a chuckle. "He's a great guitar player, too. He's in a band with some guys from Omaha South. He keeps trying to get me to join."
"What do you play?" I ask.
"Baseball," Matt jokes.
Cat Patrick
#52. [On writing:] "There's a great quote by Julius Irving that went, 'Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don't feel like doing them.'"
(One On 1, interview with Budd Mishkin; NY1, March 25, 2007.)
David Halberstam
#53. Eddie is like one of those great relief pitchers in baseball who gets the strikeout at the right time. Belfour comes up with the great saves when you need them.
Rick Tocchet
#54. That's one of the great oddities of baseball: Success is relative. A hitter who fails 70 percent of the time at the plate is a potential member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and many World Championship teams lose more than 70 games during their title-winning seasons.
Don Yaeger
#55. My message to a lot of guys is, if you like school and you like education, baseball is gonna be there, and you can get some of the same great competition in college that you do in the low minor leagues.
Barry Larkin
#56. I know I'm the world's worst fielder, but who gets paid for fielding? There isn't a great fielder in baseball getting the kind of dough I get paid for hitting.
Dick Stuart
#57. Molly stood up. You made an error! She felt like saying. A bad throw. So what? It's a baseball game. A game. Who really cares? A bad throw? In the great scheme of things? A bad throw? Of course she didn't say that. She understood that your own errors always feel tragic.
Mick Cochrane
#58. I would like to take the great DiMaggio fishing," the old man said. "They say his father was a fisherman. Maybe he was as poor as we are and would understand.
Ernest Hemingway,
#59. And I found out, the other part of it is that I found out and in my desire to life successfully, that baseball fit very well into my life. It's been a great teacher, trainer, mentor and you'll see what I mean in the next few minutes that I have to speak.
Dave Winfield
#60. Baseball writers develop a great attachment for the Brooklyn club if long exposed,
Roger Kahn
#61. You can't get real happy or real depressed when you play baseball. Baseball is a great sport in that it offers a player a lot of opportunities for atonement.
Mike Piazza
#62. If there is one thing I know, it's that with every great achievement in our lives, there is an insecure idiot hiding around the corner waiting to take a baseball bat to it.
Dan Pearce
#63. I never got to see the '27 Yankees. Everyone says that was the greatest team ever. But I think it would've been a great series if we'd have had the chance to play them.
Mickey Mantle
#64. The difference between a home run and a swing-and-a-miss is, what, an inch and a half? You can throw a great pitch, the guy makes a great swing. And if it's at a guy, it's an out. That's the beauty of baseball, really. There's not just one guy in control.
Phil Humber
#65. I was a very good baseball and football player, but my father always told me I was much more interested in how I looked playing baseball or football than in actually playing. There's great truth in that.
John Malkovich
#66. The great thing about baseball players, from the point of view of personal hygiene, is how seldom they break a sweat.
Michael Lewis
#67. That's one of the great gifts of this, the greatest of all games, baseball: it allows you, still, to lose yourself in a dream, to feel and remember a season of life when summer never seemed to die and the assault of cynicism hadn't begun to batter optimism.
Mike Barnicle
#68. I see great things in baseball. It's our game - the American game.
Walt Whitman
#69. When I'm traveling on tour, one of my favorite things to do is to throw a baseball cap on and go to a Target. The company has always been good to me. They've got such a great creative team.
Christina Aguilera
#70. I'm merely a baseball player, guys, ... In the great scheme of things, my thoughts, opinions and attitudes are of little importance.
John Rocker
#71. You may glory in a team triumphant, but you fall in love with a team in defeat. Losing after great striving is the story of man, who was born to sorrow, whose sweetest songs tell of saddest thought, and who, if he is a hero, does nothing in life as becomingly as leaving it.
Roger Kahn
#72. I think my mom and dad did a great job with that, because we [with brother] never had any competition in baseball. We always tried to help each other.
Bengie Molina
#73. I've always been a great lover of baseball.
Peter Lynch
#74. The great thing about baseball is when you're done, you'll only tell your grandchildren the good things. If they ask me about 1989, I'll tell them I had amnesia.
Sparky Anderson
#75. Religion is like baseball," said Steve. "Great game, bad owners.
Jim Bouton
#76. People say, 'Weren't you deprived of your childhood?' No way. I would not take anything back at all. Everything about it was great. I got to go places, meet people, play baseball against older kids and better competition. I had a great time.
Bryce Harper
#77. Baseball will miss Steinbrenner. He did a lot of great things-and some not so great-but it's a sad day for baseball, no doubt about it. He was a winner, and he made the Yankees a winner.
Don Zimmer
#78. A baseball manager recognizes a nonphysical talent, hustle, as an essential gift of great players and great teams. It is the characteristic of running faster than necessary, moving sooner than necessary, trying harder than necessary. It is essential for great programming teams, too.
Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
#79. Grantland Rice, the great sportswriter once said, 'It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game.' Well Grantland Rice can go to hell as far as I'm concerned.
Gene Autry
#80. In an individual sport, yes, you have to win titles. Baseball's different. But basketball, hockey? One person can control the tempo of a game, can completely alter the momentum of a series. There's a lot of great individual talent.
Kobe Bryant
#81. I don't want to take anything away from Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle. They're both great hitters, but they're batting against guys they never would have seen in previous years.
Ted Williams
#82. When I was a freshman in high school, I got a letterman jacket, which you'd think would be great stock. The jacket had the big S on it, for Santa Monica. But rather than having a football or a baseball on the S, I had a little nine iron. Girls thought it was a flute.
Carson Daly
#83. I came up in 1941 and I played against men who played in the 1930s. I stayed until 1963 playing against men who will be playing in the 1970s. So I think I can feel qualified to say that baseball really was a great game, and baseball is really a great game, and baseball will always be a great game.
Stan Musial
#84. I'm half-Italian and my name is Portuguese. Michael Young is half-Mexican. There are players from the United States that have heritage elsewhere and it's a great thing to have a world cup to celebrate the whole world. It shows the world that baseball is important and how great the game is.
Mark Teixeira
#85. Also I'm a part of the people that I've worked with in baseball that have been so great to me, Mr. Earl Mann of Atlanta, who gave me my first baseball broadcasting job.
Ernie Harwell
#86. I'm not a great deductive thinker, but I will admit to having competence in a very wide range of things - not being afraid to try to write about baseball, choral music and dinosaurs in the same week and see connections among them.
Stephen Jay Gould
#87. He really loved baseball and loved being on the field. But Mantle was lonely in a lot of ways. He had many great friends, and by all accounts was a good, generous and loyal friend. But there were a lot of people who wanted only a piece of him.
Jane Leavy
#89. The great appeal of baseball, among the great appeals, it's a game without time. It is a pastoral game that is separated from time.
Mike Pesca
#90. A baseball field must be the most beautiful thing in the world. It's so honest and precise. And we play on it. Every star gets humbled. Every mediocre player has a great moment.
Jim Lefebvre
#91. This is a great thing that's happening in baseball. We don't know if it will ever happen again.
Mark McGwire
#92. I think it's really important for this great state of baseball to reach out to people of all walks of life to make sure that the sport is inclusive. The best way to do it is to convince little kids how to
the beauty of playing baseball.
George W. Bush
#93. Cyclists, I work with a number of cyclists. They are great athletes; they are great aerobic athletes. If you ask them to hit a baseball or golf ball, they can't do that.
Eric Heiden
#94. 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
#95. The great thing about baseball is there's a crisis every day.
Gabe Paul
#96. Betemit's positional flexibility is the same as yours: He can stand around and muse about the great philosophical debates of our day anywhere on the field. Catching and throwing the baseball is an entirely different question.
Baseball Prospectus
#98. I never argue with people who say baseball is boring, because baseball is boring. And then, suddenly, it isn't. And that's what makes it great.
Joe Posnanski
#99. Billy (Martin) was a great one for jokes. He liked to play a joke more than anyone I ever knew.
Mickey Mantle
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