Diamond Quotes

“The fans like to see home runs, and we have assembled a pitching staff for their enjoyment.”

clark griffith

“Managing is getting paid for home runs someone else hits.”

casey stengel

“Honestly, at one time I thought Babe Ruth was a cartoon character. I really did, I mean I wasn’t born until 1961, and I grew up in Indiana.”

don mattingly

“A good pitcher’s main job is not to give up the first run.”

sal maglie

“Pitchers, like poets, are born not made.”

cy young

“I never saw a pitcher I didn’t feel sorry for.”

rogers hornsby

“I used to be a mad hitter. And then I learned the longer you wait out the ball, the better you see it. And the better you see it, the harder you hit it. And the harder you hit it, the higher your average is going to be. And the higher your average is, the more money you’re going to make.”

george brett

“Jacks are home runs. So are dongs, bombs, and big flies. Baseball people express their fondness for a thing by thinking up lots of different ways to say it.”

michael lewis

“Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character upon the mind.”

thomas jefferson

“Statistics are the lifeblood of baseball. In no other sport are so many available and studied so assiduously by participants and fans. Much of the game’s appeal, as a conversation piece, lies in the opportunity the fan gets to back up opinions and arguments with convincing figures, and it is entirely possible that more American boys have mastered long division by dealing with batting averages than in any other way.”

leonard koppett

“Baseball isn’t statistics—baseball is DiMaggio rounding second.”

jimmy breslin

“Only in baseball can a team player be a pure individualist first and a team player second, within the rules and spirit of the game.”

branch rickey

“In its theory and practice baseball embodies some of the central preoccupations of that cultural fantasy we like to think of as the American Dream. Anyone who does not understand the game cannot hope to understand the country. A subtle and complex activity, it rewards not brute strength, but agility, intelligence, imagination, and daring.”

george grella

“You might be a redneck if you think the last words to the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ are ‘Play Ball.’”

jeff foxworthy