All play aspires to the condition of paradise...through play in all its forms...we hope to achieve a state that our larger Greco-Roman, Judeo- Christian culture has always known was lost. Where it exists, we do not know, although we always have envisioned it as a garden...always as removed, as an enclosed green place...Paradise is an ancient dream...It is a dream of ourselves as better than we are, back to what we were.
For me, baseball is the most nourishing game outside of literature. They both are re-tellings of human experience.
I didn't really say everything I said.
Baseball was one-hundred percent of my life.
When they operated, I told them to put in a Koufax fastball. They did-but it was Mrs. Koufax's.
There are only two places in this league, First Place and No Place.
Baseball is not necessarily an obsessive-compulsive disorder, like washing your hands 100 times a day, but it's beginning to seem that way. We're reaching the point where you can be a truly dedicated, state-of-the-art fan or you can have a life. Take your pick.
Pro sports are a tough business--whether you're in baseball, football, or something else. But when you're running around the bases after hitting a home run or jumping up and down after a touchdown, a little boy comes to the surface.
I believe in the Church of Baseball. I've tried all the major religions and most of the minor ones. I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I learned that, I gave Jesus a chance.
The French don't have a baseball team. And if they did, there'd only be a left field, and no one would be safe.
Put the right pitching mechanics together with good health, and there's nothing surprising about lasting a long time.
When I joined an all-boys baseball team, my mom wasn't too happy. I proved to her (and to me) that I could do anything I set my mind to.
I was a last round draft pick. Nobody wanted me. I could count the amount of scouts that told me to go to school, to forget baseball.
When I first came to Yankee Stadium I used to feel like the ghosts of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were walking around in there.
And that one is gone. A home run for Mickey Mantle! How do you like that?
If you want to maximize your total potential ... you have to know yourself first.
Baseball was just the avenue that the Lord used so I can provide for my family.
You can't be afraid to make errors! You can't be afraid to be naked before the crowd, because no one can ever master the game of baseball, or conquer it. You can only challenge it.
You are inferior to no one. others may treat you that way, but that is their problem. You are above all of this.
Major league baseball is about the history of the game. Baseball history is so important. It's so much more than money.
That's why I don't talk. Because I talk too much.
Ozzie Smith just made another play that I've never seen anyone else make before, and I've seen him make it more often than anyone else ever has.
Everybody is a football senator for a while, but it is a much shorter season and there are not that many teams that are on top, and baseball is just built into the American psyche.
The way I figured it, I was even with baseball and baseball with me. The game had done much for me, and I had done much for it.
There were very strict social conventions, and you adhered to it, and I think it gave you a lot of character. When a man said something, he meant it. He wasn't kidding around. There were no jokes involved. Nobody was in the mood to joke unless you hit a guy with a baseball bat.
