Diamond Quotes

"How you play the game is for college ball. When you're playing for money, winning is the only thing that matters. Show me a good loser in professional sports, and I'll show you an idiot."

Leo Durocher

"Too many things seem to upset the lords of baseball, or at least the majority of them. They love to see their names in print but want their names preceded by the adjective 'great.' In that, they are not unlike the players."

Dick Young

"Once you sign a contract, you're little more than cattle. If they don't want you, they can sell you or trade you, and you just moo and move along."

Danny Darwin

"Every player that has played in three straight years in the majors, I'd send back to the Triple A for a month, just to let them see what it was like so they wouldn't forget how good they have it."

Mickey Mahler

"In the long history of organized baseball, I stand unparalleled for putting Christianity into practice. And to prove I was not prejudiced, I served up home run balls to Negroes, Italians, Jews, Catholics alike. Race, creed, nationality made no difference to me."

Robin Roberts

"When you first sign that contract as a kid, they tell you your whole future is ahead of you. But they forget to tell you that your future stops at 35."

Hal Jeffcoat

"When I pick up the ball and it feels nice and light and small, I know that I'm going to have a good day. But if I pick it up and it's big and heavy, I know I'm liable to get into a little trouble."

Bob Feller

"You know a guy's getting old when the first thing he reads in The Sporting News is the obituaries."

Tommy Lasorda

"When I was hitting home runs in the sandlot in Brooklyn somewhere, nobody would have called me to mgm. But that's how I made the transition. Thank goodness the Cubs had a minor league team in Los Angeles. If I had been playing in Boston, they'd have sent me to Louisville, and they don't make movies in Louisville."

Chuck Connors

"Sandy Koufax is the greatest Jewish athlete since Samson."

George Jessel