Winning Baseball Quotes & Sayings

The career batting average (.254) during parts of five Major League seasons for Francisco Cabrera - which proves that it takes only one big hit, on the right stage, to become a legend. Cabrera is still honored in Atlanta, and rightfully so, for winning the 1992 NLCS vs. Pittsburgh. — Tucker Elliot

If you can't enjoy the game unless you are pretty sure your team is going to win, baseball is not the game for you. Remember, the best team in baseball in any year is going to be beaten about 60 times. — Daniel Okrent

Athletes are born winners, there not born loosers, and the sooner you understand this, the faster you can take on a winning attitude and become sucessful in life. — Charles R. Sledge Jr.

That's one of the great oddities of baseball: Success is relative. A hitter who fails 70 percent of the time at the plate is a potential member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and many World Championship teams lose more than 70 games during their title-winning seasons. — Don Yaeger

The Indians franchise is more than a century old. It's been called the Blues, the Bronchos, and the Naps. It's also been called a lot worse during hard times when the team wasn't winning. — Tucker Elliot

Individual statistics, plate time and everything tend to come, but the most enjoyment I get out of baseball is actually winning. — Chili Davis

I came of baseball age (isn't it always around first grade?) in the last sputtering years of the A's Philadelphia tenancy. I probably plighted my fated troth in 1949, when the A's fluked into a winning season and introduced a pintsize southpaw named Bobby Shantz. — Richard Corliss

I really want to have a possibility of going into the Hall of Fame one day. I think that's huge with a lot of baseball writers and old school guys. Of course, that's not the main goal - the main goal is winning a World Series. Hall of Fame is so far away. It's just something I've always thought about doing. I want to be as clean as I can. — Bryce Harper

You can't win them all but you can try. — Babe Didrikson Zaharias

No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference. — Tommy Lasorda

We win if the world is convinced of two things, that you are a fine gentleman, and a great baseball player. — Branch Rickey

You've got to have camaraderie or togetherness on a baseball team if you want to win. — Andy Pettitte

Going out and playing football or baseball with the boys, when I was a tomboy, was a great way to learn about winning and losing, and most girls didn't have that experience. — Hillary Clinton

The Padres, after winning the first game of the doubleheader, are ahead here in the top of the fifth and hoping for a split. — Jerry Coleman

Stealing home is one of the most sensational plays in baseball. If the run thus scored is the winning tally, the play is, of course, all the more thrilling. It is a play that requires a lot of quick thinking to bring about a successful completion. The chap who has slow moving feet and a slower moving brain had better never try to steal home. — Billy Evans

My stuff was all right, but it's not about pitching good. It's about winning. I pitched just good enough to lose. — Greg Maddux

The greatest feeling in the world is to win a major league game. The second-greatest feeling is to lose a major league game. — Chuck Tanner

The NFL has a hard cap, but if you ask 20 NFL experts who is going to win the Super Bowl this year, you might get 20 different answers. If you then asked 20 baseball experts who is going to represent the American League in the World Series, at least 90 percent of them would say the Yankees and the rest would say Seattle. — Bob DuPuy

Hornergy' is Zen's term for the indomitable athletic edge powered by sexual restraint. The basketball, baseball and football teams haven't had a winning season in years. The table-tennis team, however, is undefeated. — Megan McCafferty

Only 12 managers have lasted more than three years with the Indians, and only three of those who did last longer than three years managed to do so without a winning record. The Indians have made strides in many areas the last three years and the shifts and changes amongst the coaching staff resulted in a highly respected group that was anxious and ready to guide the Tribe back to the postseason, but unfortunately it never materialized. Turns out the three-year threshold is a pretty solid limit for how patient an organization is when it comes to managers, and the gains made in 2011 were completely lost and then some in 2012. Acta's tenure with the club came to an end with six games left on the 2012 schedule. He ranks 13th in franchise history for games managed, but any optimisim regarding the Tribe in 2013 will rest squarely with new hire Terry Francona. — Tucker Elliot

Things happen in baseball, even if, in theory, it's something you don't do. Stats are a tool, but it doesn't mean that's how a game is being played at that moment. There's more than one way to win a game, or have a winning team. — Jon Miller

A well-run restaurant is like a winning baseball team. It makes the most of every crew member's talent and takes advantage of every split-second opportunity to speed up service. — David Ogilvy

I've always played hard. If that's rough and tough, I can't help it. I don't believe there's any such thing as a good loser. I wouldn't sit down and play a game of cards with you right now withing wanting to win. If I hadn't felt that way I wouldn't have got very far in baseball. — Rogers Hornsby

If you win through bad sportsmanship that's no real victory. — Babe Didrikson Zaharias

I was playing little league baseball when Bruce Jenner was winning the gold, but I don't think I was really paying attention at that time. It wasn't until 1980 - I think I was 12 years old - that I thought, 'Wow that's what I want to do. I want to be on the Olympic team.' — Dan O'Brien

Boys, baseball is a game where you gotta have fun. You do that by winning. — Dave Bristol

I've stated before that my number one priority as the steward of the Dodgers is winning, and I believe that hiring Ned is a step in that direction. With his genuine passion for baseball, his intimate knowledge of all aspects of the game, and solid leadership skills, I am confident that Ned's experience will help the Dodgers put a winning team on the field, year-in and year-out. — Frank McCourt

If you don't play to win, why keep score? — Vern Law

My instinct is a winning coach, and when it said "Batter up,"I didn't argue that I wasn't ready for the game. I gripped the bat in both hands, assumed the stance, and said a prayer to Mickey Mantle. — Dean Koontz

World Series MVP is a unique individual honor because with one exception - Bobby Richardson won 1960 World Series MVP honors for the Yankees, but the Pittsburgh Pirates won the Series that year - by virtue of winning the award you guarantee your teammates have won a ring. — Tucker Elliot

Baseball is like everything else. You got to study every angle to win. — Judy Johnson

The only time I really try for a strikeout is when I'm in a jam. If the bases are loaded with none out, for example, then I'll go for a strikeout. But most of the time I try to throw to spots. I try to get them to pop up or ground out. On a strikeout I might have to throw five or six pitches, sometimes more if there are foul-offs. That tires me. So I just try to get outs. That's what counts - outs. You win with outs, not strikeouts. — Sandy Koufax

The key to winning baseball games is pitching, fundamentals, and three run homers. — Earl Weaver

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

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

The difference between winning nineteen games and winning twenty for a pitcher is bigger than anyone out of baseball realizes. It's the same for hitters - someone who hits .300 looks back on the guy who batted .295 and says 'tough luck buddy. — Warren Spahn

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

I once interviewed Robert Solow, winner of the 1987 Nobel Prize in Economics and a noted baseball enthusiast. I asked if it bothered him that he received less money for winning the Nobel Prize than Roger Clemens, who was pitching for the Red Sox at the time, earned in a single season. "No," Solow said. "There are a lot of good economists, but there is only one Roger Clemens." That is how economists think. — Charles Wheelan

For many in baseball September is a month of stark contrast with April, when everyone had dared to hope. If baseball is a lot like life, as pundits declare, it is because life is more about losing than winning. — John Thorn

I don't know how anyone can put on a uniform and not care about winning. — Dave LaPoint

You're not going to win by automatically going out there. It's hard to know what people really expect of you, and I've never tried to live up to expectations anyway. That's no way to play baseball. — Greg Maddux

(Dwight Gooden) his fastball crackling , his curveball dropping as suddenly as a duck shot in the air, has begun his charge for a third straight award-winning season. — Ira Berkow

Hey Mantle, you win. You're the worst. — Mickey Mantle

Baseball is a pretty sight and a nice experience, win or lose, particularly if it is watched in a nice park. — Daniel Okrent

As the late baseball manager Sparky Anderson put it: Losing hurts twice as bad as winning feels good. — L. Jon Wertheim

People don't know this, but I helped the Cardinals win the pennant. I came down with hepatitis. The trainer injected me with it! — Bob Uecker

Winning isn't as important as doing well individually. You can't take teamwork up to the front office to negotiate. — Ken Landreaux

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

Austin, Texas, and Columbus, Ohio, are the two toughest communities in which you have to put together a winning football team. They are both big metropolitan areas without professional football and major league baseball to sidetrack them. — Brent Musburger

My goal on Earth is not to win a World Series or be the best baseball player who ever lived. That simply is not up to me because I have to wait and see if it is part of the Lord's plan. My goal is to follow the Lord and what he wants me to do so that someday I may enter His kingdom and receive everlasting life. — David Murphy

Life is like the baseball season, where even the best team loses at least a third of its games, and even the worst team has its days of brilliance. The goal is not to win every game but to win more than you lose, and if you do that often enough, in the end you may find you have won it all. — Harold S. Kushner

Comebacks Baseball and malaria keep coming back. GENE MAUCH The problem with being Comeback Player of the Year is it means you have to go somewhere before you can come back. BERT BLYLEVEN It was like watching a movie you've seen a hundred times, only they snuck in an alternate ending. BILL SIMMONS, on the Red Sox winning the 2004 World Series — Peter Handrinos

We know next year was suppose to be our year, but we didn't feel like waiting when we think we can win now. — Paul Konerko

For me, baseball is about, again, the team winning. — Eddie Murray

I am old enough to remember every Red Sox season since 1975. Baseball is long. Baseball takes forever. It's day in, day out, for six solid months - seven if you're lucky. Winning is always fun. — Bill Simmons

The best possible thing in baseball is winning The World Series. The second best thing is losing The World Series. — Tommy Lasorda

If you had a pill that would guarantee a pitcher 20 wins, but might take five years off his life, he'd take it. — Jim Bouton

Baseball is known for superstitious players and cursed teams - and at the root of every curse there's a story. Boston's curse was to trade Babe Ruth to the Yankees. Cubs fans claim a billy goat is responsible for their futility. And Cleveland's curse? The club struggled after its Pennant-winning 1954 season, but it was rich with optimism just two years later as an onslaught of new talent promised to lift the club once more to the ranks of baseball's elite - and by 1959 the club was contending for the Pennant again. And then GM Frank Lane traded Rocky Colavito to the Detroit Tigers and cursed everything. — Tucker Elliot