Play Ball Quotes & Sayings

I don't feel like I have to live up to anything because I've proven that I can play. Give me the ball and let's go. — Clinton Portis

Guys don't want to get to two strikes, so you have to make quality pitches early in the count, try to get them to put the ball in play. — Stephen Strasburg

You can never, ever worry about making mistakes or things like that. I'm going to go out and play ball, and that's what I do. — Mario Williams

I heard a delightful - and possibly apocryphal - story about what happened when the British introduced golf to India in the 1820s. Upon building the first golf course there, the Royal Calcutta, the British discovered a problem: Indigenous monkeys were intrigued by the little white balls and would swoop down out of the trees and onto the fairways, picking them up and carrying them off. This was a disruption, to say the least. In response, officials tried erecting fences to keep the monkeys out, but the monkeys climbed right over. They tried capturing and relocating the monkeys, but the monkeys kept coming back. They tried loud noises to scare them away. Nothing worked. In the end, they arrived at a solution: They added a new rule to the game - "Play the ball where the monkey drops it. — Ed Catmull

I hope that more [African-Americans] decide to play after seeing the things that I was able to accomplish; not only myself, but other African-American players. Hopefully, they pick up a bat and a ball and go out there and play. — Dontrelle Willis

I used to think I was like the wicket- keeper, which is like the catcher in base- ball, y'know what I mean? You can call the play a lot from behind the plate, y'know what I mean? You're not necessarily the star, you're not the one that makes the mark, but usually in the end, you're called upon to get a run when it's needed. — Eric Idle

Today's Little Leaguers, and there are millions of them each year, pick up how to hit and throw and field just by watching games on TV. By the time they're out of high school, the good ones are almost ready to play professional ball. — Mickey Mantle

I wish they'd shut the gates, and let us play ball with no press and no fans. — Richie Allen

If Garp was going to play lacrosse, Jenny thought, where would he go? Not out, because it's dark; he'd lose the ball. — John Irving

He pushed her jacket off her shoulders. It was warm in the room now, and she was comfortable in her sleeveless top. He skimmed his hands down
her arms, and he drew her against him.
"I missed holding you."
"I m sure you haven t been lonely without me."
He stopped and pulled her back. "There hasn't been anyone since I was with you. Believe that. All I did after you left was play ball and brood a lot. — Jaci Burton

Give a man a soccer ball, he plays for a moment. Teach a man to play soccer, he plays for a life time. — Theodore Roosevelt

Want to play hangman? asks Theophile, and I ache to tell him that I have enough on my plate playing quadriplegic. But my communication system disqualifies repartee: the keenest rapier grows dull and falls flat when it takes several minutes to thrust it home. By the time you strike, even you no longer understand what had seemed so witty before you started to dictate it, letter by letter. So the rule is to avoid impulsive sallies. It deprives conversation of its sparkle, all those gems you bat back and forth like a ball-and I count this forced lack of humor one of the great drawbacks of my condition. — Jean-Dominique Bauby

When you make a mistake, the ocean gives you an instant reminder. You get punished. If golf clubs could shock you every time you hit the ball wrong, we'd probably learn how to play golf pretty well. — Laird Hamilton

Few of us have chosen our clubs, they have simply been presented to us; and so as they slip from Second Division to the Third, or sell their best players, or buy players who you know can't play, or bash the ball the seven hundreth time towards a nine foot centre-forward, we simply curse, go home, worry for a fortnight and then come back to suffer all over again. — Nick Hornby

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

How you play the game is for college ball. When you're playing for money, winning is the only thing that matters. — Leo Durocher

My father made me who I am. He gave me a basketball and told me to play with the ball, sleep with the ball, dream with the ball. Just don't take it to school. I used it as a pillow, and it never gave me a stiff neck. — Shaquille O'Neal

Kicking a field goal, worth 3 points, can be difficult if the ball is far from the uprights. If the offense punts the ball, they are giving the other team a chance to play offense and score points. After halftime, the ball is kicked off again. It is kicked by the opposite team that kicked at the start of the game. This makes sure that no matter what happens, each team is given a chance to have the ball on offense. — A+ Book Reports

I didn't play much ball. I wasn't much of a ball fan. — Harrison Ford

I love watching Anthony Kim play, but I'm not a fan of the way he grips down a good two inches on his full-swing shots. Choking down lightens the club's swing weight and effectively makes the shaft stiffer. It also makes it difficult to hit the ball high enough for all situations. — Lee Trevino

I wasn't a jock in school, and by the 10th grade, when I was in boarding school I was carrying water buckets for the girls' hockey team. I was the kid with long hair and glasses and acne trying to learn how to play guitar and piano in the music center. I was not an athlete past the age of 13 or 14 when they start throwing the ball really fast. — Michael Weatherly

Being 5' 10, I was supposed to be too short to play college volleyball. So that gave me the hunger and the fire to say, Oh yeah? I'd just hit the crap out of the ball. — Summer Altice

I started playing ball when I was 13 and a half. Before that, I just wanted to play football and baseball but I kept growing so I figured it was time for basketball. — Moses Malone

I would play ball with Catherine, and hide and seek: Not a very challenging game in an open meadow, but she was still at the age where she believed that if she shut her eyes and buried her head under a shawl then she could not be seen. — Philippa Gregory

You either learn to play hard ball or you become the ball. — Crystal Woods

Ball teams do not always run true to form in a short series. In a season's campaign, class will tell; the best team will invariably win, unless disaster overtakes it. In a short series, some freak situation, same unusual play, may prove to be the turning point. — Billy Evans

I was a hyper kid, so I didn't want to play baseball and wait for the ball to come to me. I wanted to play a sport where I could go get the ball. — Shane Larkin

They were childless - Dan Needham suggested that their sexual roles might be so "reversed" as to make childbearing difficult - and their attendance at Little League games was marked by a constant disapproval of the sport: that little girls were not allowed to play in the Little League was an example of sexual stereotyping that exercised the Dowlings' humorlessness and fury. Should they have a daughter, they warned, she would play in the Little League. They were a couple with a theme - sadly, it was their only theme, and a small theme, and they overplayed it, but a young couple with such a burning mission was quite interesting to the generally slow, accepting types who were more typical in Gravesend. Mr. Chickering, our fat coach and manager, lived in dread of the day the Dowlings might produce a daughter. Mr. Chickering was of the old school - he believed that only boys should play baseball, and that girls should watch them play, or else play soft-ball. — John Irving

I play in front of 70,000 fans week in and week out, and I may drop the ball in practice, I may run the ball the wrong way, but once it's game time, it's game on. — Donald Driver

I'd rather play in the major leagues and have some bad games than play consistently good ball in the minors. — Simon Sinek

You don't need to play every ball on back foot. Some balls in life deserve to be played on front foot. Every ball needs good judgement to extend the limit. — Amit Ray

They played at hearts as other children might play at ball; only, as it was really their two hearts that they flung to and fro, they had to be very, very handy to catch them, each time, without hurting them. — Gaston Leroux

If they can fight and die on Okinawa, Guadalcanal (and) in the South Pacific, they can play ball in America. — Happy Chandler

But how is it your team if you don't play in it?" The boy thinks this over for a moment. Then he seems to take a firm grip on the ball. "We've supported this team for longer than most of the players in it. So it's more our team than theirs." "Preposterous," snorts Britt-Marie. In — Fredrik Backman

Ladies first." I couldn't wait for this game to be over so I could teach her how to break properly. Images of her body pressed against mine, bending over the table, caused my jeans to get tighter.
"Your funeral," she sang and my lips turned up at her flash of confidence. Echo twirled her pool cue like a warrior going into battle, never once taking her eyes off the cue ball. She leaned over the table. I focused on her tight ass. My siren ate me alive with every movement. As she took aim, she no longer resembled the fragile girl at school, but a sniper.
The quick and thunderous cracking of balls caught me off guard. The balls fell into the pockets in such rapid succession, I lost count. Echo rounded the table, once again twirling the cue, studying the remaining balls like a four-star general would a map.
Damn - the girl knew how to play. — Katie McGarry

It's a lot harder to play football when you haven't got the ball. — Andy Gray

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 came back and in '63, I was at the British Open, trying to win my first British Open. And I had what I thought was a two-shot lead with two holes to play at Lytham. I remember it like it was yesterday. Anybody with a proper brain would have played the ball short of the hole. I didn't have a proper brain at the time. But you have to make that mistake to learn it. — Jack Nicklaus

Hybart is a little community I grew up in, so it was just a wonderful time in those years. I was the youngest of about nine boys in the neighborhood and we played ball all the time, and I looked up to them and they let me play around with them, and we just had a good time. — Jeff Sessions

But I got drafted out of high school, and my mother wasn't having it. She was like, you're not about to think that you can just play ball, because if you get hurt, you're going to be out of luck. — Shemar Moore

When I played ball, I didn't play for fun ... It's no pink tea, and mollycoddles had better stay out. It's a contest and everything that implies, a struggle for supremacy, a survival of the fittest. — Ty Cobb

As long as I play ball, I can get any woman I want. — Dennis Rodman

It's true that when it's time to go, someone will be waiting for you. It might be a relative or a loved one, but not always. It could be a dog, hanging out with a tennis ball and ready to play again. Sometimes, when children die, they don't know any of their relatives who are on the other side, so they'll have an angel or even maybe a cartoon character or Santa Claus waiting to pull them across that bridge. It's just a manifestation of energy saying, "Come on, baby, it's okay. — Jodi Picoult

The beach game taught me great lessons about how to elevate the play of my teammate, or teammates, and how to anticipate and expect the ball so much more than the indoor game ever could. It taught me - even forced me - to be a much better all-around player. That allowed me to help our USA Olympic Team in many more ways than I ever could have otherwise. — Karch Kiraly

In my day we simply didn't believe that it was possible to play as well as these young fellows do. We thought that strength denied touch and that you could not consistently hit the ball both long and straight. It's been proven that you can. — Byron Nelson

Usually when we lose a game is because we turn the ball over or not play well enough and usually it is the turnover thing. We have to take care of the ball. It is starts with me and not turning it over. — Ben Roethlisberger

In America everyone plays bang ball, eight ball, nine ball, that kind of stupid crap, but in Canada and Europe they play snooker which is a much more skillful game and I enjoy that. I play pool now with friends, if we go to a bar we will play, but I am nowhere near as good as I once was. — Daniel Negreanu

They say I couldn't play football, I was too small. They say I couldn't play basketball, I wasn't tall. They say I couldn't play baseball at all and now everyday of my life, I ball. — Lil' Wayne

The truth is that I've never cared anything about sports. In PE, I do my best to get hit with the dodgeball on the first throw so I can sit out and read instead of play. I'd rather eat a hot dog at a baseball game than play baseball. I'd rather paint a soccer ball than kick one. I don't mind running, but only if I'm running towards something wonderful. i don't see the point in running away from anything, ever. -Felicity Pickle — Natalie Lloyd

Great clubs have had one thing in common throughout history, regardless of era and tactics. They owned the pitch and they owned the ball. That means when you have the ball, you dictate play and when you are defending, you control the space — Arrigo Sacchi

A story told me by Michael Barrie: Jesus and the Blessed Virgin go out to play golf. The Blessed Virgin is at the top of her form, drives and lands on the green. Jesus slices and lands in the bushes. A squirrel picks up the ball and runs off with it. A dog grab the squirrel, which still holds the ball in its mouth. An eagle swoops down, picks up the dog, squirrel and ball, and soars into the air. Out of a clear sky, lightning strikes the eagle, which drops the dog which drops the squirrel which drops the ball, right into the hole. The Blessed Virgin throws down her driver and exclaims indignantly, 'Look, are you going to play golf or just fuck around? — Christopher Isherwood

Life is nothing to be very serious about. Life is a ball in your hands to play with. Don't hold on to the ball.
— Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

To be honest, the play that was drawn up, I scratched it. I just told coach, 'Give me the ball.' We're either going to go to overtime or I'm going to win it for us. It was that simple. — LeBron James

The only times you touch the ball with your hand are when you tee it up and when you pick it out of the cup. The hell with television towers and cables and burrowing animals and the thousand and one things that are referred to as 'not part of the golf course'. If you hit the ball off the fairway, you play it from there. — Ken Venturi

It's fun to get a message on the phone service that Lucille Ball or Burt Reynolds called, and play it very blase by asking, 'Anyone else?' — Charles Nelson Reilly

I put the ball in play. That's what I want. — Jose Reyes

I took it upon myself to be more aggressive. I wanted the ball. Coach gave me the ball and I just tried to attack (and) make plays, just take it to the rim and see what happens. — Dwyane Wade

They're talking about Kobe and how great it is that he's playing with the team. Well, isn't that what you're supposed to do? Now he's the savior because he's playing that way? He's no god. He does what he's supposed to be doing, which is what we learned in kindergarten. Share the ball and play. And that's what we do better than they do — Jack McCallum

I do want to play the short ball and I do want to play the long ball.
I think long and short balls is what football is all about — Bobby Robson

If there's grass in the field, play ball! — William J. Clinton

Rosie knows how to play ball. She's an athlete, for sure. — Geena Davis

What I say about actors is you always want to find an actor you can play ball with. You throw the ball at them and you want them to throw it back. Your ball playing is a lot better when you play with good ballplayers, like any sport. Every actor I know feels the same way. — Robert Knepper

Like many men who play tennis, when I hit a ball into the net, I tend to look daggers at my racket, reproaching it for playing so badly when I myself have been trying so hard. — Craig Brown

Some players like to change clubs around the green to hit high or low shots. I play all of my short-game shots with my 54-degree sand wedge and change my ball position to hit it higher or lower. I think it's easier to learn one club than four. — Ernie Els

My life experience has taught me nothing happens by chance. Even the idea of the ball in a roulette game: it's not chance it ends up in a certain place. It's forces that are at play. — Andrea Bocelli

He wants to play major college football at a university far away, where nobody will know about his tragic family history. Then he wants to play in the NFL.

Every catch brings him closer to that reality. That's how he thinks of it, anyway. Every time he runs downfield, sees the ball in the air, and hears the defensive back laboring to catch up, whenever he feels that ball fall out of the sky and into his waiting hands, he inches closer to his goals. — Neil Hayes

When I was a kid in Michigan, I used to play ball with a town team on Sunday. Of course, I'd go to church first. Played the church organ, as a matter of fact. — Larry MacPhail

All we can do is play ball. Every time we go out on the field, we do what we do in America - live in the freedom that our country affords us. — Tim Salmon

He climbed out of the car, feeling stiff and awkward with that hot heavy weight between his legs, that miserable unsatisfied ball of need. Better play it cool, though; if Jonathan knew how bad off he was, the teasing would last for hours. Sadists smelled desperation as surely as sharks scented blood in the water. And Jonathan was very much at the top of his particular food chain. — Rachel Haimowitz

One thing that I notice that is changing, you don't see kids on Sunday. Most of them are home. The kids are having much more virtual childhoods instead of childhoods. They don't play ball or hang out with the wrong people or get in fistfights, all the things that once made childhood. I don't know how it's going to turn out. — Pete Hamill

My father never saw me play ball, and I was an outstanding ballplayer. I missed all that adoration. — Danny Aiello

I don't want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it. — Rogers Hornsby

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

I happened to look up and there it was. All over and done with, at last. I sat on for a few moments with the ball in my hand and the dog yelping and pawing at me. (Pause.) Moments. Her moments, my moments (Pause.) The dog's moments. — Samuel Beckett

A lot of players know how to play the game, but they really don't know how to play the game, if you know what I mean. They can put the ball in the hoop, but I see things before they even happen. You know how a guy can make his team so much better? That's one thing I learned from watching Jordan. — LeBron James

When I go to the plate, I think about putting the ball in play. It's important to get on base and get some walks, but I don't go to the plate thinking of walking. — Pedro Martinez

There is a part of me that no one ever sees.
I hide behind a mask of heavy make-up and ever-changing hair and clothing. I try to reinvent myself. It doesn't work. There are times when I am bone-crushingly sad. I just want to curl into a ball and hide from the rest of the world. But, I plaster on a smile and play the game for my family and friends. They call me a free spirit.
I wish I were free. I feel like I am imprisoned by my own mind. — Julia Crane

Eventually my dad got home from work and set his briefcase down.
'So. How was practice?' he asked
'It was good. Why? Did you hear it wasn't?' I said, trying to keep my cool.
'Son, no offense, but you play Little League. It's not the Yankees. I don't get daily reports about who's hitting the shit out of the ball — Justin Halpern

The Eastern potentate who declared that women were at the bottom of all mischief, should have gone a little further and seen why it is so. It is because women are never lazy. They don't know what it is to be quiet. They are Semiramides, and Cleopatras, and Joan of Arcs, Queen Elizabeths, and Catharine the Seconds, and they riot in battle, and murder, and clamour, and desperation. If they can't agitate the universe and play at ball with hemispheres, they'll make mountains of warfare and vexation out of domestic molehills; and social storms in household teacups. Forbid them to hold forth upon the freedom of nations and the wrongs of mankind, and they'll quarrel with Mrs Jones about the shape of a mantle or the character of a small maid-servant. To call them the weaker sex is to utter a hideous mockery. They are the stronger sex, the nosier, the more persevering, the most self-assertive sex. — Mary Elizabeth Braddon

The police were also ready with more formidable tools of intimidation. The office also assigned a veteran homicide prosecutor to oversee the investigation. All this activity sent a signal to Condit. If he didn't play ball, he might find himself called to testify before a grand jury under oath. — Wolf Blitzer

New York City isn't Chuck E. Cheese. We don't have ball pits for the kids to play in. We have titty bars and crack. — Jon Stewart

I lost myself immediately in one of the books, only emerging when the phone rang.
"Dashiell?" my father intoned. As if someone else with my voice might be answering the phone at my mother's apartment.
"Yes, Father?"
"Leeza and I would like to wish you a merry Christmas."
"Thank you, Father. And to you, as well."
[awkward pause]
[even more awkward pause]
"I hope your mother isn't giving you any trouble."
Oh, Father, I love it when you play this game.
"She told me if I clean all the ashes out of the grate, then I'll be able to help my sisters get ready for the ball."
"It's Christmas, Dashiell. Can't you give that attitude a rest?"
"Merry Christmas, Dad. And thanks for the presents."
"What presents?"
"I'm sorry - those were all from Mom, weren't they?"
"Dashiell ... "
"I gotta go. The gingerbread men are on — Rachel Cohn

Probably the most important aspect of individual defensive play is the 'close-out.' This approach to the ball should be made in a 'step-drag action' with advanced foot moving forward first and then the back foot in a boxer's type shuffling of the feet. — Tex Winter

I get to teach my daughter what I've learned. I don't want her to feel she has to be a certain way to impress society. If she wants to spit or go play some ball, I'll be so proud, because that's who I am, and that's a real person. — Kendra Wilkinson

But just maybe sometimes being even more patient. Even though I thought I did that much better this year, and sometimes, you know, make my opponents play that one extra ball, and just knowing how to play the big points better. — Daniela Hantuchova

I could never get bored talking about him, he was my favourite player. I loved watching him because he did everything you'd want to see in a footballer. He could dictate the pace of a game; he could take it by the scruff of the neck and control it; he could score decisive goals; he could make the killer pass; he could switch the play, open teams up, slow the game down, quicken it up; whatever was needed. He would take the ball anywhere on the pitch He was such a selfless footballer, too Scholesy was the man, all right. — Rio Ferdinand

I don't play ball because I want attention. I do it because it gives me the opportunity to bust somebody's head. And I just love to do it. I love what I do. — Marshawn Lynch

I just try to play as hard as I can every possession. If you're aware and you're high-energy, the ball will eventually bounce your way and you'll be able to make plays. — Jeremy Lin

Let no one say that I have said nothing new ... the arrangement of the subject is new. When we play tennis, we both play with the same ball, but one of us places it better. — Blaise Pascal

In order to play some sports there's quite a big cost implication, whereas football is relatively cheap. All you need is a ball and a couple of jumpers to practise. — Hope Powell

It's my job, first and foremost, to take care of the football. Guys work their tails off. That's Football 101. From the time you play youth ball to high school, college, pro, every level, that's the starting point for every quarterback. You have to take care of the ball. — Scott Tolzien

At some point we all have to grow up. Sure, high school might be the best years of our lives the way people say, but when that's over what are we gonna have? An old football career if we don't play college ball and a whole lot of broken people on our conscience. I don't want that.
Maybe there's hope for me after all. — Melyssa Winchester

When I was playing football, I always felt in complete control. When I play golf and come under pressure, it's a completely different ball game. — Alan Hansen

You worry a lot about people staring at you, right? And then you're like, 'oh, f**k it. I'll just play a sport that requires me to wear a bathing suit, and get dunked every time I have possession of the ball. — Sarina Bowen

Liverpool can play for only five minutes and win the game, that is the way they are. They pump the ball into the box and with good set-piece delivery they keep you under pressure. — Alex Ferguson

I have heard of managers who encourage players not to slide hard for fear they will get hurt and be lost from the lineup for a time. That is why you occasionally see a player go into second base on a double-play ball and not even bother to slide. I wonder, could Ty Cobb
sit though plays like that and hold his lunch? — Frank Robinson

If you can pick up a ground ball you'll play for any team you want. — Marcus Holman

I'm not in Captain America because it takes place in the '40s. Both he and Bruce Banner are relationships that evolve during this - two more rock stars that I got to get on stage, ready to play ball. — Clark Gregg

The only thing I can do is play baseball. I have to play ball. It's the only thing I know. — Mickey Mantle

I'm a Major League 3rd Baseman. If you want to go play in parking lot, I'm suppose to stop the ball. — Brooks Robinson