Baseball Quotes - Page 76

You can have the best team in baseball, and if nobody goes through the turnstiles, you've got to shut the doors down.

Baseball is played by all countries now, and softball, too.

When I took the job as the manager of the Olympic team, I didn't take it because I was a Dodger. I did it because I was an American, and I wanted to bring that gold medal where it belongs in baseball, the United States. And that's exactly what our team did.

I managed the Dodgers for 20 years. It's hard to believe that there are only four guys in the history of baseball who managed the same team for 20 years or more. One was owner of the team, Connie Mack. Another was part owner of the team, John McGraw. Then there was my predecessor, Walter Alston, and me. It's amazing. In the 20 years I managed the Dodgers, 210 managers were fired.

Say 'Dodgers' and people know you're talking about baseball. Say 'Braves' and they ask, 'What reservation?' Say 'Reds' and they think of communism. Say 'Padres' and they look around for a priest.

Bruce Benedict is so slow he'd finish third in a race with a pregnant woman.

There isn't any more that I can teach him.

Why? Why should the bond between a people and their baseball team be so intense? Fenway Park is a part of it, offering a physical continuum to the bond, not only because Papi can stand in the same batter's box as Teddy Ballgame, but also because a son might sit in the same wooden-slat seat as his father.

Researchers measure that the average major-league pitcher puts 40 pounds of pressure on his shoulder by cocking and releasing the baseball. Curious how much more the body could take, those same researchers tested cadavers. The shoulder broke apart at just beyond 40 pounds.

My job isn't to strike guys out, it's to get them out - sometimes by striking them out.

It's (baseball) on the radio and in the newspapers every day, the only game you can follow on that basis. From whatever arm's length you choose, it's always there.

Pitch within yourself.

Judged by the dollars spent, gambling is now more popular in America than baseball, the movies, and Disneyland-combined.

I had been unaware that baseball was a Republican sport.

I used to take acting so seriously, but after we did the Quest pilot and the show sold, Kurt Russel said, "You know, you work too hard. You'll make yourself sick. You can't work that hard doing a series, because it goes on so long. It's like a baseball season. You've got 162 games. You can't just go all-out the first week or two. You can't maintain that pace." And it's true.

I learned a hell of a lot from my co-star, Kurt Russell. He's one of my closest friends and was one of my best teachers. He was the pro. He approached it like a baseball player. Acting is a contact sport to him.

If you're a baseball player and you're on the mound, you don't ever want to look up in the stands if somebody is yelling at you, because they know they've got you. You just keep your head down, keep moving along. Of course it annoys you, but you don't ever show that it annoys you. Just go ahead, move on, and keep on playing.

I had an extremely boring time doing 20 to 30 trades a day while everyone was talking about baseball or basketball. So I stood there fantasizing about a device that could do the same thing I was doing.

A narrative voice with conviction is often hard to find. But not in baseball. The minors teach two lost American arts: how to chew tobacco and how to tell a story.

The best place to catch a baseball hit by (Mark) McGwire is definitely not within the confines of the playing field, or sometimes even the ballpark. Other players dial '1' for long distance. McGwire has to ask for an international operator.

An almost inexorable baseball law: A Red Sox ship with a single leak will always find a way to sink No team is worshipped with such a perverse sense of fatality.

Cheating is baseball's oldest profession. No other game is so rich in skullduggery, so suited to it or so proud of it.

Terrorism drives out all normal human activity before it, defining life in its own sick terms, if it can. So, a baseball game on a sultry Texas night before a huge crowd, with everyone feeling perfectly safe, is exactly what terrorists hate. Which is why it is so important to resume such athletic rituals - which symbolize stability, confidence and order - as soon as is reasonably possible.

Baseball is the religion that worships the obvious and gives thanks that things are exactly as they seem. Instead of celebrating mysteries, baseball rejoices in the absence of mysteries and trusts that, if we watch what is laid before our eyes, down to the last detail, we will cultivate the gift of seeing things as they really are.

Baseball is to our everyday experience what poetry often is to common speech — a slightly elevated and concentrated form.