Gillick Quotes & Sayings

At the high school level, the coaches get these kids in revenue-driven sports and take them away from baseball. There's so much pressure on these kids to even play spring football. We need to get the African-American players back in the game, which I think would make it not only a better game, but more exciting and entertaining for everyone. — Pat Gillick

When you talk about the American League, you think of Fenway. When you talk about the National League, you think of Wrigley and the fan base that they have in Chicago. — Pat Gillick

As an artist, it's been clear that the price of art has nothing to do with you, it has to do with an idea of what the market will tolerate. — Liam Gillick

People think that the art market is about opportunists and hedge-fund managers getting broken art, but what really happened is that there was a new configuration of bourgeois values in the U.S. and an acceptance among the bourgeoisie of contemporary art as an idea. I think that bourgeois people are horrible. — Liam Gillick

There's always, I guess, a philosophy that if you come in, you want to change all the parts, you want to change everything over. I've always tried to preach that consistency and continuity are very, very important. So if I know the baseball people, and I know they're competent and could do the job, I don't see any reason to replace them. — Pat Gillick

I was lucky to go to work every day for 50 years, to a job that I loved. — Pat Gillick

If I was involved with the NFL, I'd seriously consider adopting some of the rules used in Canada. I've heard, unofficially, of course, some NFL club owners have talked about adding a feature or two. The NFL went for the two-point conversion. Professional sport is entertainment, and the CFL, I believe, is ahead of the NFL in that regard. — Pat Gillick

Building a baseball team is like building a house. You look for the best architects, the best builders - and then you let them do their jobs. — Pat Gillick

Texting is a lot like an answering machine. If you don't want to talk to somebody, it's like screening your calls. To me, it's a way of communication, but not one that I favor. — Pat Gillick

I remain interested in the potential of art, except I've always been more struck by applied modernism than high modernism. It's partly because of feminist theory and being brought up in the '70s, with questioning who is speaking, and why, and what authority they're carrying. — Liam Gillick

The bourgeoisie are the only people who want to help me. The enlightened bourgeoisie are the only ones who ever buy anything, look after it, and don't ask for a discount. They want to look after you. — Liam Gillick

My label in Toronto was 'Stand Pat' and I think that was a fair assessment. I tried to be patient, but if a trade came along - big or small - that I thought should be made, I would make it. — Pat Gillick

Baseball is about talent, hard work, and strategy. But at the deepest level, it's about love, integrity, and respect. — Pat Gillick

At the heart of both democracy and capitalism is a simple assumption that, across the board, people make free and relatively rational decisions: that we are, to borrow a medical term, Gillick Competent. — Nick Harkaway

The biggest problem for my generation is that people who were born years before us have no concept of us at all. There's a massive gap. I don't know why, but we were really like orphans. Those people competed against us, they hated us and fought for things, and yet they had no interest in our work. — Liam Gillick

I was trying to land an 18-year-old strapping first baseman from Blanco, Texas, population 200. His name was Willie Upshaw. It turned out there were only three scouts who knew about Willie - Dave Yocum and I working for the Yankees, and Al LaMacchia from the Atlanta Braves. — Pat Gillick

For me, the most important thing is running a good clubhouse. The X's and the O's - you sit up in the stands and, for the most part, a lot of fans go to the game and they know what's going to happen. You're going to hit and run, steal, put a pitcher in, take a pitcher out. — Pat Gillick

You need to have camaraderie in the clubhouse. Wherever you're working, be it a baseball team or at a business, you want to walk in there and say, 'Geez, it's great to be at work. Let's go get 'em,' as opposed to walking in there knowing there's going to be a commotion. — Pat Gillick

What people in the U.S. have to understand is that there is sometimes a deep political content in my work that's rooted in the postwar reconfiguration in Europe. I'm still a foreigner in America. I'm someone who's bringing nuanced stories from somewhere else that will always be harder to take. — Liam Gillick

No matter how much technology changes scouting, no matter how much free agency and big TV contracts change the business of baseball, I hope and pray that the heart of the game will never change. — Pat Gillick

We fought like heck for every player and every advantage, but we knew we were part of something bigger than ourselves. To me, that is what baseball is all about. I hope it is always what baseball is all about. — Pat Gillick

No one born in the 1950s took much interest in my generation, and all we've done is try to fix it by talking to the people who came after us. I don't hang out with anyone who is 10 years older than I am, but I hang out with a lot of people who are 10 years younger. — Liam Gillick

Lying on top of a building, the clouds looked no nearer than when I was lying on the street. — Liam Gillick

"Contemporary art" for me is a kind of historical term that describes the 40 years between the Berlin Wall going up and then coming down. I'm not sure who will come up with a better term to describe art, but I think contemporary art is actually done for. — Liam Gillick

The U.S. has always been a contradiction. It's always been a deeply protectionist, institutional place, where you're not allowed to smoke, and you're not allowed to do this, and you're not allowed to do that. And then, on the other hand, it's completely libertarian in a way. So it's got this weird mixture of being incredibly authoritarian and incredibly open at the same time. — Liam Gillick

Philadelphia loves its team, and being able to win a World Series for the city, fans, players and our Phillies organization meant so much to me. — Pat Gillick

I'm operating in the gap between the trajectory of modernity and the trajectory of modernism. So what people think is design is not design, it's my attempt to engage with the trajectory of modernity. — Liam Gillick

Safeco Field is a lot like a National League park. Because of that, we're more of a pitching-defensive type club. Anaheim and Oakland - and even Texas - are more offensive oriented. We're a club that doesn't blow anybody out, but at the same time we don't get blown out much. We're in most of the games. — Pat Gillick

I think when people struggle with the problem of trying to understand the art world as an idea, they misunderstand it. They think it's a world of visionaries or opportunists. But it also includes people who want to take part in this cultural exercise but don't have the required stuff, they don't have the ideas or the production. — Liam Gillick

What was the first name of the Houston club? It wasn't the Astros. It was the Colt .45s. A lot of guys now will say Colt 45 is a beer. But it was also a pistol, and it went right with Texas. — Pat Gillick