Ball Players Quotes

One of the hardest things for a ball player to do is to accept his role

There's a sense of aliveness that comes from connection, shared experience. And you see it in every place. You see it when ball players jump up and down, gather at home plate, hugging, and it's not just because they're winning, it's that shared moment, that feeling of - we enter the world alone, we leave alone.

I started playing ball when I was a kid. My dad was a pro ball player and he passed on his knowledge to me

I never wanted all this hoopla. All I wanted was to be a good ball player and hit twenty-five or thirty homers, drive in a hundred runs, hit .280 and help my club win pennants. I just wanted to be one of the guys, an average player having a good season.

But I was so wrapped up in sports growing up as a kid, that I think I was going to grow to be a pro ball player. But I found out real quick that was not going to happen.

Good ball players make good citizens.

I remember the Chillicothe ballplayers grappling the Long Island ball players in a sixteen-inning game ended by darkness. And the shoulders of the Chillicothe players were a red smoke against the sundown and the shoulders of the Rock Island players were a yellow smoke against the sundown. And the umpire's voice was hoarse calling balls and strikes and outs and the umpire's throat fought in the dust for a song.

There are too many false things in the world, and I don't want to be a part of them. If you say what you think, you're called cocky or conceited. But if you have an objective in life, you shouldn't be afraid to stand up and say it. In the second grade, they asked us what we wanted to be. I said I wanted to be a ball player and they laughed. In the eighth grade, they asked the same question, and I said a ball player and they laughed a little more. By the eleventh grade, no one was laughing.

I was not successful as a ball player, as it was a game of skill.

We devote our entire lives to becoming good ball players. We take batting practice until our hands bleed.

As far as I'm concerned, Aaron is the best ball player of my era. He is to baseball of the last fifteen years what Joe DiMaggio was before him. He's never received the credit he's due.

When I was in baseball and you went into the clubhouse, you didn't see ball players with curling irons.

To be a big league ball player, you have to love the game.

I hope I haven't maxed out, because I'm not satisfied. I hope I can be a better ball player, and I hope I'm on my way.

I was not able to understand how it could be right to pay an actor, or a singer, or an instrumentalist for entertaining the public and wrong to pay a ball player for doing exactly the same thing.

Owners want to make their team a winner so they can get more fans in the stands, and that's why they go after the best ball-players and pay 'em what they're worth.

When you heard Jimi Hendrix, you knew it was Jimi Hendrix. He introduced himself with his instrument. His attack to a guitar man, was, oh, something else! You think of one of the great American ball players, or one of the great fighters of the world, you know, that's the way he would attack any note on his guitar.

Thinking about the things that happened, I don't know any other ball player would could have done what he (Jackie Robinson) did. To be able to hit with everybody yelling at him. He had to block all that out, block out everything but this ball that is coming in at a hundred miles an hour and he's got a split second to make up his mind if it's in or out or down or coming at his head, a split second to swing. To do what he did has got to be the most tremendous thing I've ever seen in sports.

I've always studied business. Even when I was a ball player, I'd read business journals and the business sections of newspapers.

Just take the ball and throw it where you want to. Throw strikes. Home plate don't move.

We must make sure their worst players get the ball the most. You'll get it back in no time.

A ball player has to be kept hungry to become a big leaguer. That's why no boy from a rich family has ever made the big leagues.

Don't tell me about the world. Not today. It's springtime and they're knocking baseball around fields where the grass is damp and green in the morning and the kids are trying to hit the curve ball.

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

Well, boys, it's a round ball and a round bat and you got to hit the ball square.

Every hitter likes fastballs, just like everybody likes ice cream. But you don't like it when someone's stuffing it into you by the gallon. That's what it feels like when Nolan Ryan's thrown balls by you.

When they start the game, they don't yell, "Work ball." They say, "Play ball."

I think there's an awful lot of ball players with great skills, but whether or not they're going to be on winning teams is not going to be answered until you see how they fit in to a team or a program. If they don't, it may be their fault or it may be their coaches.

It's a round ball and a round bat, and you got to hit it square.

I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.

During my 18 years I came to bat almost 10,000 times. I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times. You figure a ballplayer will average about 500 at-bats a season. That means I played 7 years without ever hitting the ball.

I played seven years without ever hitting the ball.

This guy from L.A. sits down next to me, and he says "you like baseball?" I said, "Oh, man, I love baseball." So he goes "Did you know that if Jesus had played ball, he'd have been the greatest ball player ever?" Like I'm gonna argue with that logic. So I sat there for a second, and then I said "did you know that if Babe Ruth had been the Messiah, the Catholics would have beer and hot dogs at Communion?" He left.

We all start out with the same alphabet. We are all unique. Talent is not the most important thing --- discipline and dedication are. Craft can be learned but desire and longing are innate. Despite the demands of school and just being young, try to write SOMETHING every day --- a description, a captured emotion, a simile, a metaphor. Read, for crying out loud! A writer must read the way a ball player must go to the ballfield every day to practice. Everything is possible in this world of ours--- and so's publication.

I always wanted to be an NBA ball player since I was eight years old. I kind of went on the road of sports and I ended up on the stage with the microphone. For me it's like a dream come full circle. I think some people do it because their agent tells them it's a good look to get some publicity. But myself, I eat, live, and breathe basketball.

I appreciate this moment in time...ball players and actors be knowing my rhymes