BASEBALL QUOTES

There is something to be said about being quoted. Baseball players and managers say crazy things that hit the papers and airways. Who knows if they are even in context.

Here are a few to make you giggle:

Sparky Anderson February 22, 1934
"He's (Willie Stargell) such a big strong guy he should love that pitch. He's got power enough to hit home runs in any park, including Yellowstone."

Don't call us (ballplayers) heroes. Fireman are heroes."

"Me carrying a briefcase is like a hot dog wearing earrings."

"Sparky came here two years ago promising to build a team in his own image. Now the club is looking for small, white haired infielders with .212 batting averages." - Detroit Tigers Sportscaster Al Ackerman (on air)

Connie Mack December 22, 1862 – February 8, 1956),
"Humanity is the keystone that holds nations and men together. When that collapses, the whole structure crumbles. This is as true of baseball teams as any other pursuit in life."


"After all my years, there are two things I've never got used to - haggling with a player over his contract and telling a boy he's got to go back." -

Whitey Herzog November 9, 1931

Herzog's Rules 1. Be on time. 2. Bust your butt. 3. Play smart. 4. Have some laughs while you're at it.

"If you don't have outstanding relief pitching, you might as well piss on the fire and call the dogs."

"I'm not buddy-buddy with the players. If they need a buddy, let them buy a dog."

"Some people asked me if I would be interested in managing the A's. I said a definite no thank you. At night, that place is a graveyard with lights."

"The only thing bad about winning the pennant is that you have to manage the All-Star Game the next year. I'd rather go fishing for three days."

Cy Young March 29, 1867 – November 4, 1955
"Gosh, all a kid has to do these days is spit straight and he gets forty-thousand dollars to sign."

"All us Youngs could throw. I used to kill squirrels with a stone when I was a kid, and my granddad once killed a turkey buzzard on the fly with a rock."

Yogi Berra born May 12, 1925
"All pitchers are liars or crybabies."

"A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore."

"Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical."

"The game's isn't over until it's over."

Babe Ruth 1895–1948,
"Aw, everybody knows that game, the day I hit the homer off ole Charlie Root there in Wrigley Field, the day October first, the third game of that thirty-two World Series. But right now I want to settle all arguments. I didn't exactly point to any spot, like the flagpole. Anyway, I didn't mean to, I just sorta waved at the whole fence, but that was foolish enough. All I wanted to do was give that thing a ride... outta the park... anywhere." Source: My Greatest Day in Baseball (John P. Carmichael)

Baseball Quotes From Movies

Ahh, Jesus, I like him very much, but He no help with curveball." - Serrano. "Are you trying to say Jesus Christ can't hit a curveball?" - Harris in Major League (1989)


"Do you know what we get to do today Brooks? We get to play baseball." - Jim Morris (Dennis Quaid) in The Rookie (2002)


"God, I just love baseball." - Robert Redford in The Natural (1984)


"If you build it, he will come." - Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams (1989)


"I love baseball. You know it doesn't have to mean anything, it's just beautiful to watch." - Woody Allen in Zelig (1983)


"I'm an escaped car thief. I broke out of prison to see the Cubs in the World Series." - James Belushi in Taking Care of Business (1990)


"I still get such a bang out of it, playing ball. Same as I did when I first come up. You get out there and the stands are full and everybody is cheering. It is like everybody in the world come to see you. Inside that there is the players in there and there yakking it up and the pitcher throws and your looking for that pill and suddenly there is nothing else in the ballpark you and it and sometimes when your feeling right and there is a groove there and the bat just eases into it and meets that ball. When the bat meets that ball you can feel that ball just give and you know it is going to go a long way. Damn, if you don't feel like your going to live forever." - John Cusac as Buck Weaver in Eight Men Out (1988) This is based on the 1919 World Series scandal.


"Pick me out a winner, Bobby"- Roy Hobbs in The Natural (1984)


"People all say that I've had a bad break. But today, today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth." - Gary Cooper in Pride of the Yankees (1942)


"The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and what could be again." - James Earl Jones in Field of Dreams (1989)


"Well I can't rightly say (which player hit the ball hardest), but the ones (home runs by Babe) Ruth hit got smaller quicker." -Walter Johnson in Ken Burns Baseball (1994)

Quotes about Baseball movies

"And who can say that the Mets didn't sense this, too. That they didn't know all along that this year (1969) at Shea life was imitating not just art, but a United Artist production?" - Roger Angell in The Summer Game (1972)


"Can you even name ten movies with basketball or football as a major theme? After 'Hoop Dreams' and 'Brian's Song,' what have you got? 'The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh' and 'Necessary Roughness' is what." - Will Lingo in Baseball America


"He (Steve McQueen) must have made that before he died." - Yogi Berra


"I had sat in my bedroom as an eight year old, written letters to him (Duke Snider) in care of the Dodgers in far off Brooklyn, begging for an autographed picture. He was more glamorous to me than any movie star because he wasn't acting; he was a real life hero whose luster didn't fade when the film ended." - Bob Greene


"I heard that actors start work at six o'clock in the morning. That sort of soured me on the whole thing." - Pitcher Bo Belinsky


"I'm a ballplayer, not an actor." - Joe DiMaggio


I'm happy to sign a contract (for Shaft in 1971) that doesn't have a reserve clause in it." - Pitcher Vida Blue


"I'm the only former major league ball player who crashed the movies whole hog. Accordingly, I'd act like a ball player, not an actor, in the baseball scenes, and in the rest of the film I'd act like an actor, not a ballplayer." - Chuck Connors on playing Ted Williams in the movies in Baseball Digest (1961)


"I was the player that plunked (Ronald) Reagan with a ball between the eyes as he was heading for second." - Peanuts Lowrey on The Winning Team (1952)


"Jeez, they're going to give me fifty-thousand smackers just for living." - Pitcher Dizzy Dean


"My passion for baseball began with the film Pride of the Yankees. I watched mystified but entranced as Gary Cooper, alias of Lou Gehrig, tried to fulfill his promise to a crippled child to hit three home runs in the same game." - Patrick Morley (founder of UK SABR chapter)


"The boy-and-dog sequence in the movie (The Babe Ruth Story) is very tough to take. Ruth almost kills a pooch on the playing field with a batted ball. The boy owner of the dog is disconsolate. Ruth rushes dog and boy down to a hospital and induces a surgeon to work on the canine. Of course, the dog recovers, but Ruth misses the game and for that, we are told, he is fined $5,000.00 by (Miller) Huggins." - Dan Daniel in The Sporting News (July 26, 1948

Shoeless Joe Jackson Part II

Jackson did, however, admit to receiving a cash payment of $5,000 ($83,099 in current dollar terms) and that he had been originally promised a $20,000 ($332,396 in current dollar terms) bribe.

Legend has it that as Jackson was leaving the courthouse during the trial, a young boy begged of him,

"Say it ain't so, Joe,"

and that Joe did not respond. In an interview in Sport Magazine nearly three decades later, Jackson contended that this story was a myth.
A contemporary press account does, however, refer to an exchange of Jackson with young fans outside of the Chicago grand jury hearing on September 28:

When Jackson left criminal court building in custody of a sheriff after telling his story to the grand jury, he found several hundred youngsters, aged from 6 to 16, awaiting for a glimpse of their idol.

One urchin stepped up to the outfielder, and, grabbing his coat sleeve, said:"It ain't true, is it, Joe?"

"Yes, kid, I'm afraid it is," Jackson replied.

The boys opened a path for the ball player and stood in silence until he passed out of sight."Well, I'd never have thought it," sighed the lad.

Regardless of whether Jackson's exchange with the shocked young fan was a true historical event or a fabrication by a journalist, the "Say It Ain't So" story remains an oft-repeated and well-known part of baseball lore.

He is, still to this day, considered one of the greatest players of all time. He was exonerated and inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Even Babe Ruth adapted his style after Shoeless Joe.

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PS According to the information available, the reason the White Sox were called the Black Sox had nothing to do with the scandal. It had to do with wearing dirty uniforms, as they were charged .25 cents for each cleaning and did not want to pay for it.

Shoeless Joe Jackson

In 1919, Jackson and the White Sox found themselves back in the running for another World Series ring. Jackson batted .351 during the regular season and .375 with perfect fielding in the World Series. The heavily favored Sox found themselves in a losing battle against the Cincinnati Reds. During the next year while batting .385 and leading the American league in triples Jackson was suspended after allegations that 8 members of the White Sox threw the previous World Series. In 1921 A Chicago jury acquitted Jackson of helping to fix the 1919 World Series, but Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the first commissioner of Baseball went against the ruling and banned all eight players including Joe Jackson from baseball for life.

But..................what about that nick name?

According to Jackson, he got his nickname during a mill game played in Anderson, South Carolina. Jackson suffered from blisters on his foot from a new pair of cleats and they hurt so much that he had to take his shoes off before an at bat. As play continued, a heckling fan noticed Jackson running to third base in his socks, and shouted "You shoeless son of a gun you!", and the resulting nickname "Shoeless Joe" stuck with him throughout the remainder of his life!

WORLD SERIES The Scandal of 1919

No doubt we have all seen the terrific movie called "The Field of Dreams" starring Kevin Costner who builds a baseball stadium on his Iowa farm after hearing the chat, "If you build it, he will come".

Gambling and game-fixing had been a problem in professional baseball from the beginning. Baseball's gambling problems came to a head in 1919, when 8 players of the Chicago White Sox conspired to throw the 1919 World Series. The Sox had won the series in 1917 and were heavy favorites to beat the Cincinnati Reds, but first baseman Gandil had other plans. Gandil, in collaboration with gambler Joseph "Sport" Sullivan, approached his teammates and got six of them to agree to throw the Series.

Eddie Cicotte, starting pitcher played by Steve Eastin
Lefty Williams, short stop
Swede Risberg, left fielder played by Charles Hoyes
Shoeless Joe Jackson, center fielder, played by Ray Liotta
Happy Felsch, infielder, played by Art LaFleur
Fred McMullin, infielder
Buck Weaver, Third Base played by Michael Milhoan

The Sox, who were promised $100, 000 for cooperating, proceeded to lose the Series in eight games, pitching poorly, hitting poorly and making many errors. Though he took the money, Jackson insisted to his death that he played to the best of his ability in the series (he was the best hitter in the series, but had markedly worse numbers in the games the White Sox lost).


The Series turned out to indeed have serious consequences for the sport. After rumors circulated for nearly a year, the players were suspended in September 1920.


The "Black Sox" were acquitted in a criminal conspiracy trial. However they were all banned for life from playing professional ball.

In the movie, the field is built for those "Black Sox" who had been banned along with other players who had died and still wanted to play ball.

The scandal was real, it was dubbed, "World Serious".

But what about this Shoeless Joe Jackson? What is the story on him?

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WORLD SERIES Yankees and the Phillies

Everyone knows what baseball is. Nearly everyone has swung a bat as a kid on a sand lot and made bases out of anything that was available. Perhaps the porch was third base and that spindle like tree was first. Even Rosewood had a team, they played Anita, another village on the Soo Line. The fun of childhood gets complicated with coaches, uniforms, a book of rules, and teams picked when someone is always picked last.

Not so in what is known as the World Series of Baseball. The game is a high dollar sport where humans are expected to perform as robots and every pitch to be hit and every runner to get on base. It is said the big cities have more money to contract players, therefore have better teams. It may best be compared to Rosewood playing, let's say Thief River Falls. It isn't that they could not win, it is just the odds of having better players is greater. Lesser teams do win, kids playing as a team with a heart do well.

Does that factor into the World Series?

The best of the National League team and the best of the American League team challenged each other to a play off in FOOTBALL in 1902. The Series, as we know it, started in 1903 between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston, (now) Red Sox. For the most part, the series was best of seven, although there were years best of nine were played.

As a kid, I always wondered why it was the WORLD SERIES, after all the teams were all from the United States. It wasn't until the Toronto Blue Jays were formed that any other country was represented. Daddy told me the USA presumed they were the best.

Although it has been called the October Classic, here we are into November and the Series continues. This year, it is the Phillies and the Yankees. It is the best of seven.

To date: Yankees 2 games, Phillies 1 game. Every pitch, every spit, and every crack of the bat is televised.

Are you there?

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