Diamond Quotes

"You must always have an alibi to show why you lost. If you haven't one, you must fake one. Your self-confidence must be maintained. Always have an alibi. But keep it to yourself. That's where it belongs."

Christy Mathewson

"No game in the world is as tidy and dramatically neat as baseball with cause and effect, crime and punishment, motive and result so cleanly defined."

Paul Gallico

"The sports section records people's accomplishments; the front page nothing but man's failures."

Earl Warren

"A ballplayer has two reputations, one with the other players and one with the fans. The first is based on ability. The second the newspapers give him."

Johnny Evers

"Baseball is made up of very few big and dramatic moments, but rather it's a beautifully put together pattern of countless little subtleties that finally add up to the big moment, and you have to be well-versed in the game to truly appreciate them."

Paul Richards

"Kranks crawl into a shell and do not emerge until April. While in his shell his only article of food is gray newspaper articles on deals. During the krank's season from April to November he subsists on air and likes it strong. First characteristic is knowing it all and second is telling it all."

Thomas W. Lawson

"It isn't really the stars that are expensive. It's the high cost of mediocrity."

Bill Veeck

"Many people resented my impatience and honesty, but I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect."

Jackie Robinson

"Back when I came up, baseball was about establishing yourself. You wanted to get into a position to break the records of the players you grew up watching."

Tony Gwynn

"Show me a guy who's afraid to look bad, and I'll show you a guy you can beat every time."

Lou Brock

"Baseball, like the theater, is a great mental tonic, a national relaxation, where the hardest worker may go and forget his business troubles for two or three hours. But unlike the theater, baseball is played in the open air where the spectator even while he is receiving the mental tonic which comes from the exhilaration of the game, is also drinking in life and health in the fresh air and sunshine."

Charles W. Murphy

"I wish people would watch baseball the way ballet fans watch the dance-not to see who wins but to see how well each player performs his art."

Mike Marshall

"Two events are supremely beautiful: the strikeout and the home run. Each is a difficult and unlikely thing flawlessly achieved before your eyes."

William Saroyan

"In the beginning there was a word and the word was 'Play Ball.'"

George Bowering