Baseball Game Quotes & Sayings

When you go to watch a baseball game, when you go to watch an NBA game, when you watch an NFL game, when you go to watch movies, the offering that those arenas are doing foodwise is 'all the hot dogs you can eat'; all the French fries you can eat; for $20 you can eat 20 hot dogs. — Jose Andres

We have an obligation to spread amateur baseball both at home and abroad. Building up the game at all levels - Little League, Babe Ruth Leagues, the colleges - is in our own self-interest. That's where the pool of talent is - and also of fans. — A. Bartlett Giamatti

I can't believe that Babe Ruth was a better player than Willie Mays. (Babe) Ruth is to baseball what Arnold Palmer is to golf. He got the game moving. But I can't believe he could run as well as (Willie) Mays, and I can't believe he was any better an outfielder. — Sandy Koufax

As a general comment on baseball:"90% of the game is half mental." — Yogi Berra

There are a lot of pitchers in baseball who should celebrate his life and what he did for the game of baseball. — Tommy John

Baseball is really two sports
the summer game and the autumn game. One is the leisurely pastime of our national mythology. The other is not so gentle. — Thomas Boswell

When I began playing the game, baseball was about as gentlemanly as a kick in the crotch. — Ty Cobb

That's the remarkable thing about baseball. The game has a way of having you scratch your head one minute and drive you crazy, and then the next, you're entertained beyond your wildest hopes. That's why it's the best game. — Johnny Bench

There is nothing like Ruth ever existed in this game of baseball. I remember we were playing the White Sox in Boston in 1919, and he hit a home run off Lefty Williams over the left-field fence in the ninth inning and won the game. It was majestic. It soared. — Waite Hoyt

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

Somebody has inquired as to whether I will be going to the opening baseball game. I hope to have that pleasure. — Herbert Hoover

The way I figured it, I was even with baseball and baseball with me. The game had done much for me, and I had done much for it. — Jackie Robinson

If real Satanism were allowed the kind of television time that Christianity has now, the kind of drawing out and patience that interviewers give sports figures, or the kind of coverage that a baseball game gets, Christianity would be completely eliminated in a few short months. If people were allowed to see the complete, unbiased truth, even for 60 minutes, it would be too dangerous. There would be no comparison. — Anton Szandor LaVey

Five days after the Tsarnaev brothers blew up Boston's most sacred event, and just 24 hours after one brother was killed and the other was caught, everyone decided that it was OK to play baseball at Fenway again. The game happened on a Saturday afternoon, preceded by an emotional ceremony and many prayers. — Bill Simmons

I was a kid who loved to play games. Any kind of game, any kind of ball. Give me a baseball, give me a basketball, give me something I can bounce and throw. — Terry Bradshaw

Baseball was a safe bet. Baseball also didn't have a girlfriend. Then again, baseball didn't have big brown eyes or show a little hint of cleavage under its uniforms. Decisions, decisions. — Rachel Spangler

Speed slows down the game. — Tim McCarver

My dad was the force behind me early on. He was just infatuated with baseball. He was the one that basically taught me how to play the game. He gave a lot of his time working out with me, practicing and taking me to a lot of different games. It was hard work between both of us. — Rafael Palmeiro

There are surprisingly few real students of the game in baseball; partly because everybody, my eighty-three year old grandmother included, thinks they learned all there was to know about it at puberty. Baseball is very beguiling that way. — Alvin Dark

I play for the poor man. I try to give a thrill to the lunch bucket fan. I know their plight. I worked in a factory in high school. The poor folk who lay out the hard bread to see a game. That's where my heart lies. The rich don't need heroes. — Leon Wagner

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. — Babe Ruth

Baseball is a fun game. It beats working for a living. — Phil Linz

There has always been a saying in baseball that you can't make a hitter, but I think you can improve a hitter. More than you can improve a fielder. More mistakes are made hitting than in any other part of the game. — Ted Williams

It's not in baseball's interest or the players' interest to be taking this stance. It's the people's game. — Fay Vincent

Two hours is about as long as any American can wait for the close of a baseball game, or anything else for that matter. — Al Spalding

Sometimes, in a tight game with runners on, digging in at short, ready to break with the ball, a peace I'd never felt before would paralyze the diamond. For a moment of eternal stillness I felt as if I were cocked at the very heart of the Midwest. — Stuart Dybek

I do the work just because I enjoy it on the day, working with the guys. For me, it's like going to play a game of baseball: you've got your teammates, you get to do something that's fun, hopefully, and whatever happens with that stuff is in the cosmos someplace. — William Petersen

Basketball is a game. Baseball is a religion. Baseball is American. — Jerry Reinsdorf

I came up in 1941 and I played against men who played in the 1930s. I stayed until 1963 playing against men who will be playing in the 1970s. So I think I can feel qualified to say that baseball really was a great game, and baseball is really a great game, and baseball will always be a great game. — Stan Musial

People need to look at baseball like it has been sent from the heavens, and respect the game. — Johnny Damon

When I got out of baseball, I got all the way out. I might watch a World Series game or something. — Rollie Fingers

was like he'd lost a baseball game, his dog, and his last hundred bucks in the same day. — Annabeth Albert

Spread the diaper in the position of the diamond with you at bat. Then fold second base down to home and set the baby on the pitcher's mound. Put first base and third together, bring up home plate and pin the three together. Of course, in case of rain, you gotta call the game and start all over again. — Jimmy Piersall

In baseball, you can't kill the clock. You've got to give the other man his chance. That's why this is the greatest game. — Earl Weaver

The game of baseball is a clean, straight game, and it summons to its presence everybody who enjoys clean, straight athletics. It furnishes amusement to the thousands and thousands. — William Howard Taft

DiMaggio's grace came to represent more than athletic skill in those years. To the men who wrote about the game, it was a talisman, a touchstone, a symbol of the limitless potential of the human individual. That an Italian immigrant, a fisherman's son, could catch fly balls the way Keats wrote poetry or Beethoven wrote sonatas was more than just a popular marvel. It was proof positive that democracy was real. On the baseball diamond, if nowhere else, America was truly a classless society. DiMaggio's grace embodied the democracy of our dreams. — David Halberstam

Baseball, boxing, handball - sooner or later every game gets compared to narrative, but only in football are the plays perfectly linear, drawn up with letters, and only in football is the field itself lined like a sheet of notebook paper. — J.R. Moehringer

You look up and down the bench and you have to say to yourself, 'Can't anybody here play this game?' There comes a time in every man's life and I've had plenty of them. — Casey Stengel

I'm just worried about winning baseball. I'm only worried about what I can do to help the team win. It's about improving in every facet of the game. I think that's everyone's goals. Whatever we can do to help the team win is what we'll do. I think Andy has done a great job of coming in and helping our offense. AD is getting those pitchers ready. Coach Mainieri is going to coach up some wins this year. We are very excited and working on every facet of the game. — Alex Bregman

What's the game coming to? Evidently the guys making all these rules never played the game of baseball. — Pete Rose

People say I don't have great tools. They say that I can't throw like Ellis Valentine or run like Tim Raines or hit with power like Mike Schmidt. Who can? I make up for it in other ways, by putting out a little bit more. That's my theory, to go through life hustling. In the big leagues, hustle usually means being in the right place at the right time. It means backing up a base. It means backing up your teammate. It means taking that headfirst slide. It means doing everything you can do to win a baseball game. — Pete Rose

One of the chief duties of the fan is to engage in arguments with the man behind him. This department of the game has been allowed to run down fearfully. — Robert Benchley

Back in my day, we didn't think about money as much. We enjoyed playing the game. We loved baseball. I didn't think about anybody else but the Cardinals. — Stan Musial

Baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh ... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come. — Terrence Mann

Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game and do it by watching first some high-school or small-town teams — Jacques Barzun

A lot of people think that you have to specialize in one sport from an early age in order to turn pro. Most of my teammates played a lot of different sports when we were kids. I liked to golf, water ski and play baseball. That helped me develop other aspects of my game and made me WANT to be on the ice even more once hockey season started. — Pat LaFontaine

Does one eat peanuts at a ball game?' 'It ain't hardly legal if you don't. — Edna Ferber

If all of us who love baseball and are doing our jobs, then those who get the game from us will be as proud to be a part of it as we were. And we are. This game is a gift, and I am humbled, very humbled, to accept its greatest honor. — Joe Torre

He [Gene Kelly] once told me dancing was a man's game, as much of a sport as baseball itself. And he made us believe that. He changed our minds and suddenly, all of America wanted to dance just like Gene Kelly. — Liza Minnelli

There is no room in baseball for discrimination. It is our national pastime and a game for all. — Lou Gehrig

Baseball is my escape. The sights, the sounds, the way the park smells. There is truly no place I would rather be than at a game. — Alyssa Milano

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. — Tucker Elliot

I love baseball. I'll probably end up one of those old farts who go to spring training in Florida every year and drive from game to game all day. — Steve Earle

I ain't got no problem in Boston, I especially like the attention. I know that I'm one of the top guys in this game and all the attention is on me, I got a lot of people on my shoulder but I'm human. I like to go. I like to have fun. I like to do this and that but I gotta represent Boston and the Red Sox in every way that I do outside this game ... Like I said I get paid to play baseball no [matter] where I go to play I still gotta go and perform even if I like it or not. — Manny Ramirez

It's the mathematical potential for a single game to last forever, in a suspended world where no clock rules the day, that aligns baseball as much with the dead as the living. — Bill Vaughn

You can keep going on and on about the interactions of people, which makes it a great drama and great event, and you'll always hold that special, but if you're looking at a baseball moment, the feeling you get when you win the World Series by far exceeds anything else in the game that you're able to do. — Cal Ripken Jr.

You can't be afraid to make errors! You can't be afraid to be naked before the crowd, because no one can ever master the game of baseball, or conquer it. You can only challenge it. — Lou Brock

Grantland Rice, the great sportswriter once said, 'It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game.' Well Grantland Rice can go to hell as far as I'm concerned. — Gene Autry

The public wouldn't like the perfect umpire in every game. It would kill off baseball's greatest alibi - 'We was robbed.' — Billy Evans

I won an MVP trophy with the St. Louis Amateur Baseball Association. I didn't even start. I was a sub on this team. This was, like, an All-Star game where we had athletes from different teams, different mixtures. We had, like, the only black team in the league, basically. We had four players go to the All-Star game. — Nelly

Do you know how crazy that made me? I'm trying to concentrate on my fucking fucking ball baseball game and all I can think about is why the hell the girl I'm in love with is ignoring me. I knewsomething was wrong when you never called. I tried to shake it off, but I couldn't. You can't do that tome. Don't you understand? You can't fucking do that to me when I'm trying to play ball! — J. Sterling

For me, baseball is the most nourishing game outside of literature. They both are re-tellings of human experience. — A. Bartlett Giamatti

I never picked up my phone and called a bookmaker and bet on a baseball game from the clubhouse. Never. — Pete Rose

For the middle majority of us all, knowledge of Negroes firsthand is probably limited - limited to the colored cleaning woman, who comes twice a week, limited to the colored baseball player who saves or loses a home game, limited to the garage mechanic, or dime-store clerk, or blues singer seen and heard on a Saturday night. To this white majority, the black man is as unknown as once was the heart of the Dark Continent of Africa. — Irving Wallace

Baseball can have its perfect dimensions, its undeniable drama, but hockey, for all its wrongs, still has the potential to deliver a momentary, flashing magic that is found in no other game we play. — Roy MacGregor

Kiernan and baseball - it's like waving a carrot in front of a mule. Put tickets to a ballgame in front of Kiernan's face and he'll follow you pretty much wherever you want to go. After that first game we attended in 1905, it didn't take much for me to convince him to see another game in 1912, and then one in 1924, and so on. — Rysa Walker

Again, like I said, I went out to play the game of baseball because I love to play it. I did it right. I did it the right way. I worked hard doing it. — Roger Clemens

Baseball really is a glorified game of throw and catch. And if you don't have guys who throw it really well, you can't compete for long. — Tucker Elliot

The only real game - I think - in the world is baseball. — George Herman

Defense usually doesn't make many headlines, but it goes a long way towards winning baseball games. There are a number of ways to make an impact during the course of a game, and playing solid, sound defense is one of them. — Derek Jeter

You know how, when you fly from coast to coast on a really clear day, looking down from many miles up, you can see the little baseball diamonds everywhere? And every time I see a baseball diamond my heart goes out to it. And I think somewhere down there- I don't see any houses, I can hardly see any roads- but I know that people down there are playing the game we all love. — Donald Hall

The future is as far from perfect and as full of errors as this baseball game, but at this moment, it's all mine.
And I guess that's something — Jeri Smith-Ready

Owners, the way they blackballed me from baseball, the way they used me, in a sense, and then the way they wanted to send a signal to the other players, saying, you know, we're going to get Jose Canseco out of the game. This is a cue or a message for you other guys to stop using steroids because the owners lost total control of the steroid use. — Jose Canseco

One of the inspirations for my becoming a writer was the baseball board game Strat-O-Matic. — H. G. Bissinger

If I go to a baseball game, I hear 'Shoeless Joe,' but otherwise, I hear 'toe pick' five times a day. No matter how many more movies I make, that'll be on my gravestone. — D. B. Sweeney

1980 Fun Fact #1: Mattel releases the Intellivision video game console. Our video game addiction began with the likes of "Baseball," "Football," and "Night Stalker. — Tom Harvey

Since baseball time is measured only in outs, all you have to do is succeed utterly; keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time. You remain forever young. Sitting in the stands, we sense this, if only dimly. The players below us - Mays, DiMaggio, Ruth, Snodgrass - swim and blur in memory, the ball floats over to Terry Turner, and the end of this game may never come. — Roger Angell

A baseball manager has learned a lot about his job from having played the game, but a parent has not learned a thing from having once been a child. — Bill Cosby

The game isn't over till it's over. — Yogi Berra

Baseball is more than a game. It's like life played out on a field. — Juliana Hatfield

Someone once described the pitching of a no-hit game as like catching lighting in a bottle. — W.P. Kinsella

As American as an apple is and as American as baseball is, they don't go together. You can't be chewing an apple at a baseball game. You've got to let go of the diet that day. — Kevin James

You saw him standing out there, and you knew you had a pretty damn good chance to win the baseball game. — Red Ruffing

The only thing worse than a Mets game is a Mets doubleheader. — Casey Stengel

Baseball is a team game but, at the same time, it's a very lonely game: unlike in soccer or basketball, where players roam around, in baseball everyone has their little plot of the field to tend. When the action comes to you, the spotlight is on you but no one can help you. — Chad Harbach

I do something that I don't think anyone else does. I warm up before a game. Baseball and basketball players warm up, so why shouldn't the announcer warm up? — Chick Hearn

I told you. I don't do soft and gentle. — Collette West

I have always been a firm believer that the game has never belonged to the owners. It has never belonged to the ballplayers. It belongs to the guy who puts his money up on the window and says, 'How much does it cost to sit in the bleachers?' That is who owns baseball. And it has got to be kept that way. — Johnny Vander Meer

If you're an American reader, you can love short stories the way other Americans love baseball; this is our game, people! We have more than two hundred years of know-how and knack, of creativity. — Amy Bloom

Baseball is a spirited race of man against man, reflex against reflex. A game of inches. Every skill is measured. Every heroic, every failing is seen and cheered, or booed. And then becomes a statistic. — Ernie Harwell

I chose baseball because to me baseball is the best game of all. — Dave Winfield

There is a progression of understanding vis-a-vis pro football that varies drastically with the factor of distance
physical, emotional, intellectual and every other way. Which is exactly the way it should be, in the eyes of the amazingly small number of people who own and control the game, because it is this finely managed distance factor that accounts for the high-profit mystique that blew the sacred institution of baseball off its 'national pastime' pedestal in less than fifteen years. — Hunter S. Thompson

Watching a spring training game is as exciting as watching a tree form its annual ring. — Jerry Izenberg

Never say never in this game because crazy stuff can happen. — Mark Buehrle

In baseball, it's tough to get up for every single game, every single moment. In football, you have 90,000 fans screaming and the band's playing. I do miss that adrenaline rush. — Adam Dunn

My little brothers loved baseball. I'm not as big on that as basketball or football, but I understand the game. — Jurnee Smollett

I don't know how long we talked about that game the first time my dad showed me the ticket stub. He admitted he hadn't even been sure that he still had it, that he was surprised when he'd been able to find it. But we've spent hours and hours and hours talking about it since. And it's pretty amazing, because that ticket stub sat in a box for two decades - once it let my dad into a stadium to see a baseball game, and then later, it let me into my dad's world, into his past, to learn about the man who taught me to love a game so passionately that it shaped nearly every aspect of my life. — Tucker Elliot

Yes but the point is that you can go to the ballet with me or a baseball game or a concert and wherever is fine. You're like the Swiss army knife friend; you have an attachment for everything. — Mary Calmes

Baseball's still a game. I don't want it to be work. I want it to be a game. — Don Mattingly

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. — JohnA Passaro