Top 100 Rickey's Quotes
#2. Has he (Rickey Henderson) ever been here (Spring Training) the first day? You have to say Rickey's consistent. That's what you want in a ballplayer - consistency.
Don Mattingly
#3. Well, Rickey's not one of them, so that's 49 percent right there.
Rickey Henderson
#4. Ethnic prejudice has no place in sports, and baseball must recognize that truth if it is to maintain stature as a national game.
Branch Rickey
#5. To me the most important thing was stirring things up and scoring some runs so we could win a ballgame.
Rickey Henderson
#6. Certain guys, they can see a guy do a certain thing with their glove and know what pitch is coming. I couldn't do that. But I can get on first base and I can tell you by his move if that pitcher is going to first base or home plate every time.
Rickey Henderson
#7. Just because I believed in what I was doing on the field and dedicated myself to playing the game, does that mean I'm cocky? Does that mean I'm arrogant?
Rickey Henderson
#8. I'm a man of some intelligence. I've had some education, passed the bar, practiced law. I've been a teacher and I deal with men of substance, statesman, business leaders, the clergy ... So why do I spend my time arguing with Dizzy Dean?
Branch Rickey
#9. Baseball people, and that includes myself, are slow to change and accept new ideas. I remember that it took years to persuade them to put numbers on uniforms.
Branch Rickey
#10. Don't worry about your individual numbers. Worry about the team. If the team is successful, each of you will be successful, too.
Branch Rickey
#11. People always ask me why I still want to play, but I want to know why no one will give me an opportunity. It's like they put a stamp on me: 'Hall of Fame. You're done. That's it.'
Rickey Henderson
#12. Speeches and me don't get along sometimes. It is kind of like putting a tie too tight on my neck. I'm going to do whatever feels right.
Rickey Henderson
#13. Since the design of the movement is paramount, shape, for me, should have no significance.
George Rickey
#14. Leo Durocher is a man with an infinite capacity for making a bad thing worse.
Branch Rickey
#15. I told myself that if I ever make it to the big leagues that I would be the one to appreciate the fans. Take a little time out to sign autographs and shake their hands and say hello to them.
Rickey Henderson
#17. Once you can accept failure, you can have fun and success.
Rickey Henderson
#18. You have to keep running. I always believed I was going to be safe.
Rickey Henderson
#22. How to use your leisure time is the biggest problem of a ballplayer.
Branch Rickey
#23. I love playing this game and every spring training feels like the first.
Rickey Henderson
#24. A great ballplayer is a player who will take a chance.
Branch Rickey
#25. I am alarmed at the subtle invasion of professional football, which is gaining preeminence over baseball. It's unthinkable.
Branch Rickey
#27. Nothing's impossible for Rickey. You don't have enough fingers and toes to count out Rickey.
Rickey Henderson
#28. I don't think I ever got proper credit about being smart about the game.
Rickey Henderson
#29. Let's see, for breakfast Rickey will have bacon and eggs, and grits if I can get 'em.
Rickey Henderson
#30. The world's not so simple anymore, I guess it never was. We ignored it, now we can't.
Branch Rickey
#31. I have to play baseball to make me happy. I have to be an athlete. But when it's all said and done, I'll be a normal father. A normal-type house man.
Rickey Henderson
#32. I haven't had the time to say, 'I'm retiring.' But baseball says, 'You're retired.'
Rickey Henderson
#33. It gave me no chance. He (Nolan Ryan) just blew it (strikeout #5,000) by me. But its an honor. I'll have another paragraph in all the baseball books. I'm already in the books three or four times.
Rickey Henderson
#34. Thinking about the devil is worse than seeing the devil.
Branch Rickey
#37. I'm a Hall of Famer and I'm still fighting for it because I love the game and I love to play.
Rickey Henderson
#38. The man with the ball is responsible for what happens to the ball.
Branch Rickey
#39. I really believe that music is the only motivation you need-regardless of genre-after that everything else you need to guide you just somehow falls in line-it's all about the beats!
Rickey Russell
#41. Sometimes I really do feel that Peter Griffin is right about the clouds plotting against us.
Rickey Russell
#42. It (a baseball box score) doesn't tell how big you are, what church you attend, what color you are, or how your father voted in the last election. It just tells what kind of baseball player you were on that particular day.
Branch Rickey
#43. I cannot face my God much longer knowing that his black creatures are held separate and distinct from his white creatures in the game that has given me all that I can call my own.
Branch Rickey
#44. My dream was to play football for the Oakland Raiders. But my mother thought I would get hurt playing football, so she chose baseball for me. I guess moms do know best.
Rickey Henderson
#45. The only thing Abner Doubleday ever started was the Civil War.
Branch Rickey
#46. Cobb lived off the field as though he wished to live forever. He lived on the field as though it was his last day.
Branch Rickey
#47. Don't look at the hole in the doughnut. Look at the whole doughnut.
Branch Rickey
#48. I did not mind the public criticism. That sort of thing has not changed any program I thought was good.
Branch Rickey
#50. Rickey got a big ranch. Rickey got a big bull. Rickey got horses. Rickey got chickens and everything. And Rickey got a 20-gallon hat.
Rickey Henderson
#53. This is Rickey calling on behalf of Rickey. Rickey wants to play baseball.
Rickey Henderson
#54. We win if the world is convinced of two things, that you are a fine gentleman, and a great baseball player.
Branch Rickey
#55. Somehow, I've been blessed to be able to have the young spirit inside - not feel like every year I get a year older. I feel like every year I get a year younger. I don't wake up in the morning with aches and pains.
Rickey Henderson
#56. It's always exciting that you can rub elbows with some of the greatest players who have ever played the game, and just being around the "family" again from baseball.
Rickey Henderson
#58. Lou Brock was a great base stealer but today I am the greatest.
Rickey Henderson
#60. Forget your religious superstitions built by cults and learn to love for the sake of humanity."-Stated after hearing a man use religion to justify and warrant hatred of people based on differences put forth by his spiritual beliefs. Oddly enough I happen to be very superstitious myself!
Rickey Russell
#61. I don't care if I was a ditch-digger at a dollar a day, I'd want to do my job better than the fellow next to me. I'd want to be the best at whatever I do.
Branch Rickey
#62. Perhaps it's art; but if it isn't, at least it's something else equally interesting to me!
George Rickey
#64. To all the kids out there: Follow your dream. Believe in your dream. Because dreams do come true.
Rickey Henderson
#65. Rickey was never motivated by stats. He was motivated by numbers. Wins, runs, steals.
Rickey Henderson
#66. Good luck is what is left over after intelligence and effort have combined at their best. Luck is the residue of design.
Branch Rickey
#67. I have always had fun playing the game of baseball because I loved it so much.
Rickey Henderson
#70. Branch Rickey once said of me that I was a man with an infinite capacity for immediately making a bad thing worse.
Leo Durocher
#71. The bottom line is just that Rickey Henderson was my favorite player. His flair, his style-the key word is impact-he's an impact player.
Jimmy Rollins
#72. I've seen few things more depressing than the end-of-season Giants-Padres series in 2001 in which Barry Bonds hit his 68th homer of the year while a .227-hitting, rapidly fossilizing Rickey Henderson staggered like a delirious marathoner toward 3,000 hits.
Stephen Rodrick
#73. Embrace Your Abomination!" - in regards to religious zealots constantly calling gays an abomination.
Rickey Russell
#74. The greatest untapped reservoir of raw material in the history of our game is the black race.
Branch Rickey
#75. Man may penetrate the outer reaches of the universe, he may solve the very secret of eternity itself but for me, the ultimate human experience is to witness the flawless execution of the hit-and-run.
Branch Rickey
#76. He (Leo Durocher) had the ability of taking a bad situation and making it immediately worse.
Branch Rickey
#77. Here is a couple more things I can't spell without you, disgust and distrust.
Rickey Russell
#79. You never had the opportunity to play with some of the great ballplayers, but being that close around them, and being in the same category, was a great feeling, to feel that vibe of all the best players who played the game.
Rickey Henderson
#81. Mr. Rickey, I'll put more people in the park than anybody since Babe Ruth.
Dizzy Dean
#82. In baseball you train the whole body, except for the hip and eyes.
Rickey Henderson
#83. Luck is the residue of opportunity and design.
Branch Rickey
#84. Oakland is home, and you always want to go home. Anytime you get the chance, you're happy to go home.
Rickey Henderson
#85. My impact on the game was going out there and making things happen.
Rickey Henderson
#86. You make my insides feel like the vibrator's on!-Rev'ed up-throbbin'-as the beats send chill's down my mind into those dark legs of ecstasy where no man dare's whimper my name-That divine sensation that drives me into the nethersphere!-You here the trippin' I am drippin ?
Rickey Russell
#87. White people build a really big fire and stand way back. Indians build a little-bitty fire and get real close.
Rickey Bray
#88. Thou shalt not steal. I mean defensively. On offense, indeed thou shall steal and thou must.
Branch Rickey
#89. I won twenty-eight games in thirty-five and I couldn't believe my eyes when the Cards sent me a contract with a cut in salary. Mr Rickey said I deserved a cut because I didn't win thirty games.
Dizzy Dean
#90. I was in the top ten percent of my law school class. I am a Doctor of Juris Prudence. I have an honorary Doctor of Laws. So, would somebody please tell me why I spent four mortal hours today conversing with a person named Dizzy Dean.
Branch Rickey
#91. It is sad and oddly comforting once you realize that chaos is the natural order
Rickey Russell
#92. Some day I'm going to have to stand before God, and if He asks me why I didn't let that [Jackie] Robinson fellow play ball, I don't think saying 'because of the color of his skin' would be a good enough answer.
Branch Rickey
#95. I don't want to be one of those great players who never made it to the Series.
Rickey Henderson
#96. If you look at some of the people in the Hall of Fame, my numbers are compatible.
Rickey Henderson
#97. If my uniform doesn't get dirty, I haven't done anything in the baseball game.
Rickey Henderson
#98. Worry is simply thinking the same thing over and over again and not doing anything about it.
Branch Rickey
#99. If things don't come easy, there is no premium on effort. There should be joy in the chase, zest in the pursuit.
Branch Rickey
#100. Fill in any figure you want for that boy (Mickey Mantle). Whatever the figure, it's a deal.
Branch Rickey
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