The only way I can't hit .300 is if there's something physically wrong with me.
No one ever asked what was my relationship with Bart Giamatti. We used to talk about baseball a lot as a player and a commissioner, just talk about the game, what could we do to help the game, where's the game going, he was pretty good.
I owe baseball. Baseball don't owe me a damn thing.
If baseball wants to get you, they've got enough resources and enough investigators that they'll find a way to get you.
I don't go to bed every night worried about getting back into baseball.
If I had admitted my guilt, it would have been the same as putting my head on the chopping block - lifetime ban. Death penalty. I spent my entire life on the baseball fields of America, and I was not going to give up my profession without first seeing some hard evidence ... right or wrong, the punishment didn't fit the crime, so I denied the crime.
It doesn't take much to get me up for baseball. Once the National Anthem plays, I get chills. I even know the words to it now.
We all used to collect baseball cards that came with bubble gum. You could never get the smell of gum off your cards, but you kept your Yankees cards pristine.
I enjoy every bit of baseball I can get.
It was easier than explaining DiMaggio's use as a metaphor.
Anytime you put a baseball player in a suit and take him out of his element its uncomfortable.
I remember I thought I should become a doctor, even though I had no talent for science whatsoever. Then of course, until I was about sixteen, I thought I might have a shot as a major league baseball player. But once I hit my full adolescence I lost all interest in that. I discovered, in rapid succession, books, girls, alcohol and tobacco, and I've never turned back. Those are the four things I'm most interested in.
Baseball is like cricket, and I grew up in a country where they had cricket. So I understand cricket, soccer and basketball. I played basketball at the club level and a little bit in college, so thats why Im a basketball fanatic.
Frank went out for baseball and while he wasn't very good, it wasn't a total loss. The coach used him as a pattern to drawn the on-deck circle.
I remember growing up, getting the Colorado Springs Sun in the morning and the Denver Post in the afternoon, and my dad just inhaling both of them, and me waiting to get the sports page from him. I fell in love with the craft. I remember being 9 years old and playing baseball in the backyard and coming in and writing little newspaper articles for my dad.
I like football. I like baseball. When the pitcher and the batter start fighting, that's the best.
I look back now and realize you have to learn the system. Not kiss ass, but you have to learn the system.
People should really horde their Blu-rays like old comic books and baseball cards. Because they're really beautiful, and will be worth something if you like movies as I do.
At a Dodger baseball game in Los Angeles, I asked Will Durant if he was ninety-four or ninety-five. "Ninety-four," he said. "You don't think I'd be doing anything as foolish as this if I were ninety-five, do you?"
For my children, they spent 15 to 20 years of their life in baseball. And Ruth and I spent so many years of our married life that that was our life. We knew nothing else.
I always thought that there was going to be life after baseball, and so I designed that in my life I would have other interests after baseball that I would be able to step into. And I didn't realize the grip that baseball had on me and on my family.
I was late to the Knicks. My dad was a big fan. But I first started watching baseball; I became a Red Sox fan. My dad was a Mets fan. I wanted to have my own team and league.
As a father, you find yourself telling this to your kids a lot. My son, when he didn't want to play baseball, I was like, "Buddy, try it. Try playing baseball and if you don't like it, that's fine. But I want you to try it. I want you to try as hard as you can at it. And then we'll talk about it." You kind of have to give yourself the same pep talk. As a 43-year-old, you're like, "You know what? Just, try it. Try as hard as you can, give it everything you got and then accept the results."
Then, as she turned to walk away, Fred dropped the guillotine."So we're making Ev CEO," he said, his fork clenched in his hand. "You're going to get a passive chairman role and a silent board seat. We have some paperwork for you and a recommendation for a lawyer."Jack felt like he had just been hit in the face with a baseball bat. "Say that again," he stuttered to Fred, thinking he had heard incorrectly.Fred repeated himself almost verbatim: We're making Ev CEO. You're getting a passive chairman role. You will have a silent board seat. Here's the paperwork. Call a lawyer.
How're the Broncos doing?" "Like a bunch of carrots." "Is that bad?" "Can carrots play baseball?" "I guess not." "Then you have your answer.
