Mickey Mantle Quotes

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.

It's unbelievable how much you don't know about the game you've been playing all your life.

A team is where a boy can prove his courage on his own. A gang is where a coward goes to hide.

If I had played my career hitting singles like Pete (Rose), I'd wear a dress.

I leaned on him for support when I got out of the cab, and he just crumpled to the ground. That's how we found out.

Somebody once asked me if I ever went up to the plate trying to hit a home run. I said, 'Sure, every time.'

After I hit a home run I had a habit of running the bases with my head down. I figured the pitcher already felt bad enough without me showing him up rounding the bases.

You never have to wait long, or look far, to be reminded of how thin the line is between being a hero or a goat.

I thought I raised a ballplayer. You're nothing but a coward and a quitter.

Stay away from drugs and alcohol. Listen to your moms and dads. In this great country of ours you do whatever you set your mind to. Make us proud of you.

I've often wondered how a man who knew he was going to die could stand here and say he was the luckiest man on the face of the earth, but now I guess I know how he felt.

He who has the fastest golf cart never has a bad lie.

Well, baseball was my whole life. Nothing's ever been as fun as baseball.

I hated to bat against Drysdale. After he hit you he'd come around, look at the bruise on your arm and say, 'Do you want me to sign it?'

Bravery is a complicated thing to describe. You can't say it's three feet long and two feet wide and that it weighs four hundred pounds or that it's colored bright blue or that it sounds like a piano or that it smells like roses. It's a quality, not a thing.

Don't do as I did. I'm living proof of how not to live.

If I hadn't met those two guys (Billy Martin and Whitey Ford) at the start of my career, I would have lasted another five years.

Hey Yog, what time is it? You mean right now?

To get a better piece of chicken, you'd have to be a rooster.

No man in the history of baseball had as much power as . No man.

Hitting the ball was easy. Running around the bases was the tough part.

My dad taught me to switch-hit. He and my grandfather, who was left-handed, pitched to me every day after school in the back yard. I batted lefty against my dad and righty against my granddad.

I never understood how someone who was dying could say he was the luckiest man in the world, but now I understand.

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.

Thank God for baseball.