Best 2491 quotes in «baseball quotes» category

...the Big Red Machine was exactly that—a freaking machine.

The career batting average (.254) during parts of five Major League seasons for Francisco Cabrera—which proves that it takes only one big hit, on the right stage, to become a legend. Cabrera is still honored in Atlanta, and rightfully so, for winning the 1992 NLCS vs. Pittsburgh.

The coach put his hand on Ken's knee.

The crowd and its team had finally understood that in games, as in many things, the ending, the final score, is only part of what matters. The process, the pleasure, the grain of the game count too.

The fearful happenings of the second game need not be lingered over, being now as well known as the circumstances surrounding the fall of Troy. Until the gods began their heavy-handed meddling, it was a fine, fast game, with the Dodgers having somewhat the better of it.

The great thing about baseball is, I've heard a hundred statements beginning, 'The great thing about baseball is.

The game was played hard in those days, Mr.King, with plenty of fuck-you.

The Indians franchise is more than a century old. It’s been called the Blues, the Bronchos, and the Naps. It’s also been called a lot worse during hard times when the team wasn’t winning.

The naked pinch hitter takes only one thing to the plate: his raw, and somewhat irrational, confidence in himself. That this confidence is so unreasonable adds to its dignity.

The man on the rock had pitched five outs in the losing game, and had given up two runs on a single. But he’d inherited loaded bases. The story of his life. The story of all our lives.

The Mets lose an awful lot? Listen, mister. Think a little bit. When was the last time you won anything out of life?

The nice guys are all over there, in seventh place.

The Phillies in the 1960s had shortstop Bobby Wine and second baseman Cookie Rojas, a period known as the Days of Wine and Rojas.

The problem is politics is made a sport, almost as much a sport as football or baseball. When it comes to politics, adults and politicians do more finger-pointing and play more games than children ever do. Too often are we rooting for the pride of a team rather than the good of the nation.

The plan was simple. Once on the Plain of Idavoll, we were going to follow the immortal strategy of Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh and “announce [our] presence with authority.

The reporter asked, "why did you play so hard." "Because there might have been somebody in the stands today who'd never seen my play before, and might never see me again" -Joe DiMaggio

The questions came...hurling at him...like the balls from a baseball pitching machine...just one after the other without a care or concern of where they went - but he couldn't hit them, he didn't have a baseball bat - he only had a toothpick!

There are many ways to measure a manager’s success and contributions to a franchise ... but in this case the two numbers that illustrate it best are eight and four: Bobby Cox’s #6 jersey was just the eighth number retired in franchise history, and of the remaining seven, four of them played for Bobby.

The red haired waitress arrived with their drinks, dancing about the table as she placed their orders in front of them. "Hiya, keeds. Peachy place, ain't it?" Before anyone could respond, she kicked her heels in the air and flitted off again. Waldo lit up a cigarette and tasted his drink. "Listen, I don't think we ought to stay here very long...." "No shit, Sherlock!" Brisbane chortled. "But first I want to have a little fun. I think I'm gonna talk to some of these guys." The fredneck left the table and walked over to a group of five men, all of them clad in the old baseball uniforms that were apparently quite popular at The One Year Wonder And All-Around Oddity Bar. They were huddled together on one side of the bar, and Brisbane broke into their conversation with a burst of fredneck chutzpah.

There is something special about baseball that goes far deeper than being a game. It is the father-son relationship that is built, the life lessons that are taught in the process of playing a game and the ability to overcome not succeeding all of the time and still considering yourself a success.

There was a bold gleam in his eyes and a smile on his face.

They play, said the old man. Every week the anglos play a game to celebrate who they are. He stopped, raised his cane and fanned the air. One of them whacks it, then sets off like it was a trip around the world, to every one of the bases out there, you know the anglos have bases all over the world, right? Well the one who whacked it runs from one to the next while the others keep taking swings to distract their enemies, and if he doesn't get caught he makes it home and his people welcome him with open arms and cheering.

The walk-off win provides one of baseball’s most thrilling outbursts, launching a couple dozen tense teammates out of the dugout into a frenzied mosh pit of elation.

There was a time we laughed at the old guys up on the hill. The ones who graduated a couple of years before us, and who would hang around the school and the ballpark still, and would sit on the hoods of their cars and tell us how when they were seniors they did it better, faster, and further. We laughed, because we were still doing it, and all they could do was talk. If our goals were not met, there was next year, but it never occurred to us that one day there would not be a next year, and that the guys sitting on the hoods of their cars at the top of the hill, wishing they could have one more year, willing to settle for one last game, could one day be us.

This girl owns me, whether she realizes it or not. I'm a slave to her will.

This game [baseball] should be passed from father to son. You want your son to grow strong and be a man? Play catch with him.

True, [Gary Nolan] might not strike fear into the hearts of all you free-swinging power hitters out there—at least not in the same way as, say, Tom Seaver … but without question he was one of the most talented pitchers in baseball during the Big Red Machine era, and except for countless injuries that plagued him year after year he’d have the numbers and awards to back up that claim.

This is the perfect place for you, Henry. With the right support you could become the next Aparicio. Personally, I think everyone involved—you, me, the front office—should do everything possible to make sure you wind up wearing a St. Louis Cardinals cap.” Henry reaches up and touched his brim. “I’m wearing one right now.

This kiss was different from the first one under the olive tree. That one had been unplanned, she was pretty sure. This kiss had intention and hunger branded all over it. It was like one of those kisses you read about in fairy tales—but Alana had never imagined that such a kiss could cause bone-trembling shivers as well as bliss. She’d never considered the downside of the awakening kiss, of how the princess felt when the hero tore through the thorns or scaled the tower and speared heat and sex and life-changing energy into the princess’s world.

To age with dignity and courage cuts close to what it is to be a man.

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.

Today a pitcher gets fined if the umpire thinks he threw at a batter. In the olden days, the umpire didn't have to take any courses in mind reading. The pitcher told you he was going to throw at you.

Twice a year, I have lunch with Dr. George Will and Dr. Charles Krauthammer, who write and speak about important issues in the world, such as politics and war and gay marriage. But at lunch, all we talk about is baseball, which is good because I can’t talk fluently about anything else, especially with two guys that, when it comes to intelligence, make me feel like Fred Flintstone. At lunch one day, Charles said, without apology, “I read the front page for ninety seconds every day, then I go straight to the box scores.” To which, George said, “Why do you waste the ninety seconds?

Very few who manage a big league club are successful, fewer still are the ones who experience success over an extended period of time, but to achieve a level of success so extraordinary that it is given a category all it’s own—“The Big Red Machine”—places Sparky [Anderson] in one of the most exclusive and elite clubs in baseball history.

Turns out Valhalla had been sending its recycling to home plate at Fenway, which could explain any problems the Red Sox were having with their offensive lineup.

Understand that we were a crowd of rational people. We knew that a home run cannot be produced at will; the right pitch must be perfectly met and luck must ride with the ball. Three innings before, we had seen a brave effort fail. The air was soggy; the season was exhausted. Nevertheless, there will always lurk, around a corner in a pocket of our knowledge of the odds, an indefensible hope, and this was one of the times, which you now and then find in sports, when a density of expectation hangs in the air and plucks an event out of the future.

Vic Wertz once hit a ball rather famously that was later described as such: 'It would have been a home run in any other park—including Yellowstone.' Instead, he’s remembered as the guy who got robbed by Willie Mays' spectacular catch during the 1954 World Series between the Indians and the Giants, a play that remains one of the game’s all-time greatest defensive efforts. What people often forget about Wertz is that his greatest battle wasn’t that one at bat, and that one out never defined his career. He was stricken with polio in 1955, and after 74 games his season was over and his career was hanging in the balance. 'The Catch' by Willie Mays couldn’t keep him down, and neither could polio—he came back in 1956, and despite playing in only 136 games he belted 32 home runs with 106 RBIs.

We try to take it from one at-bat to the next, ya know it’s easier said than done, but all put together it looks good in the end.

Well, did anything interesting happen today?' [my father] would begin. And even before the daily question was completed I had eagerly launched into my narrative of every play, and almost every pitch, of that afternoon's contest. It never crossed my mind to wonder if, at the close of a day's work, he might find my lengthy account the least bit tedious. For there was mastery as well as pleasure in our nightly ritual. Through my knowledge, I commanded my father's undivided attention, the sign of his love. It would instill in me an early awareness of the power of narrative, which would introduce a lifetime of storytelling, fueled by the naive confidence that others would find me as entertaining as my father did.

Who is he anyhow, an actor?" "No." "A dentist?" "...No, he's a gambler." Gatsby hesitated, then added cooly: "He's the man who fixed the World Series back in 1919." "Fixed the World Series?" I repeated. The idea staggered me. I remembered, of course, that the World Series had been fixed in 1919, but if I had thought of it at all I would have thought of it as something that merely happened, the end of an inevitable chain. It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people--with the singlemindedness of a burglar blowing a safe. "How did he happen to do that?" I asked after a minute. "He just saw the opportunity." "Why isn't he in jail?" "They can't get him, old sport. He's a smart man.

When he had gotten rid of his exuberance he sat down at once to write to his brother Hal about it, and also his forest-ranger friend, Dick Leslie, with whom he had spent an adventurous time the last summer.

When I was a kid, my parents were very careful about who was “acceptable” as my heroes if you will, because they didn’t want me being influenced by athletes who lacked morals. Cal Ripken and Dale Murphy were at the top of my mom’s list of players she felt were good role models, so of course I was a diehard fan of both those guys.

Who’s winning?” “I don’t have a f*cking clue nor do I f*cking care.” Echo’s head ticks back. “Back off, Beth.” I cross the room, drop a kiss on the curve of Echo’s neck and whisper in her ear, “She’d rip me to pieces, too, right now. She’s a b*tch when the Yankees play.” Her eyebrows rise. “Is she a Red Sox fan?” Isaiah chuckles and we both throw him a glare, but he doesn’t notice as he’s absorbed in a car manual. “Beth hates baseball.” Echo’s eyes dart from Beth to the television to me then she waves her hand in the air for an explanation. “She watches,” I explain. “Yankees only. It’s what she does and there are some things we don’t question about each other.” “Just the Yankees?” Echo whispers. “Just the Yankees,” I repeat. “And she hates baseball?” “With a passion.” “That’s...” Echo says in a hushed tone. “That’s messed up.

Why did the two most important things in her life have to require her attention at exactly the same time?

You didn't play baseball that well with two hands. How do you think you're going to make it with one? "If you're just going to tell me what I can't do, you can leave.

You can get base hits or home runs, but you can’t get a grand slam without both.

You can make it to AAA ball on talent only. It's difficult but it can be done. But to make it to the big leagues, you HAVE to be coachable. You have to stay coachable.

Why do we remember the Boys of Summer? We remember because we were young when they were, of course. But more, we remember because we feel the ache of guilt and regret. While they were running, jumping, leaping, we were slouched behind typewriters, smoking and drinking, pretending to some mystic communion with men we didn't really know or like. Men from ghettos we didn't dare visit, or rural farms we passed at sixty miles an hour. Loving what they did on the field, we could forget how superior we felt towards them the rest of the time. By cheering them on we proved we had nothing to do with the injustices that kept their lives separate from ours. There's nothing sordid or false about the Boys of Summer. Only our memories smell like sweaty jockstraps.

Why would anyone want to fight Henry?" Loondorf looked hurt. "Because he's a ballplayer." "So?" "So he's a baller. He's got cash, chains, crisp clothes. He's got a hat that says Yankees and it's the real deal, yo. He didn't buy it at no yard sale. He walks into a bar and girls are like damn. Dudes get jealous. They want to get in his face, prove they're somebody." "They want to take down the man," Steve said helpfully.

You can say, 'Well, if they tore down Fenway Park, we can build a new one.' But you wouldn’t build it right. It’s better to make the accommodations, to save the old ballparks. If Fenway Park needs sky boxes to bring in the poverty-stricken owners enough money to save the stadium before they tear it down and move it someplace else, then build the damn sky boxes. If Wrigley Field needs lights to survive, put up the damn lights.... Make the damn structural improvements, but save the ballpark because when you try to rebuild a cathedral five hundred years too late, it doesn’t come out the same.