"I believe in the church of baseball ... there's no guilt in baseball, and it's never boring." -Annie Savoy, in Bull Durham

"Baseball is like church; many attend, few understand." -Wes Wustrum, catcher for the New York Giants

My opinion of Great Baseball Quotes

                                                        On Pitching

"Throw strikes. Home plate don't move." -Satchel Paige

                                                      Umpires

"They can hollar at the uniform all they want, but when they hollar at the man wearing the uniform, they're in trouble." -Umpire Joe Brinkman

"Ideally, the umpire should combine the integrity of a Supreme Court justice, the physical agility of an acrobat, the endurance of Job an the imperturbability of Buddha." -Time Magazine

"My main weakness as an umpire was that I could let molehills become mountains." -Ron Luciano, umpire

"One reason I never called balks was I never understood the rule." -Ron Luciano,umpire.

"We're supposed to be perfect our first day on the job and then show constant improvement." -Ed Vargo, major league baseball umpire

"A well known baseball umpire was once asked if there is such a thing as a natural umpire. He responded, ``Yes, but no one starts out that way." -Anonymous

Hitting

"Pro-rated at 500 at-bats per year, my 1,081 strike-outs would mean that for 2 years out of the 14 I played, I never touched the ball." -Norm Cash

"A batter can't go up there and just swing. He's got to think." -Ted Williams

Joe DiMaggio, the Way He Played, and the Time That He Played the Game In

"He was what baseball was all about before we got to that high-priced stuff." -George Ladino, baseball fan

"It's the passing of a person from a time when baseball was the way it should be, when there was a higher ethical and moral standard." -Doug Connor, baseball fan

"For several generations of baseball fans, Joe was the personification of grace, class and dignity on the baseball diamond. His persona extended beyond the playing field and touched all our hearts. In many respects, as an immigrant's son, he represented the hopes and ideals of our great country." -Baseball commissioner Bud Selig

"He was the kind of guy that exemplified what a major leaguer should be like, and act like, and play like. ... He played the game with so much intensity. He played the game with pride. He wore the Yankee uniform with dignity and character." -Tommy Lasorda
"Joe DiMaggio batting sometimes gave the impression that the old rules and dimensions of baseball no longer applied." -Donald Hall

Baseball and its impact on society

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America
has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard,
rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game,
is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could
be again. Oh people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come."
-James Earl Jones as Terence Mann, in Field of Dreams

"Baseball, my son, is the cornerstone of civilization." - Chick Young

"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of america had better learn baseball, the rules and the realities of the game- and do it by watching first some high school or small town teams." -Jacques Barzun

"It looks easy ... Baseball fosters illusions. Baseball fosters hopes. Baseball inflates us. Baseball lies to us seductively and we know we're being seduced and we don't complain." -John Thorn

"Men should take the nation's problems as seriously as they take baseball." -Anonymous
"When there is no room for individualism in the ballpark, there will be no room for individualism in life." -Bill Veeck

"Baseball makes it easy for generations to talk to one another." -Joel Oppenheimer
"Baseball is the only place in life where a sacrifice is really appreciated." -Anonymous
"Baseball does not build character, it reveals it." -Anonymous

"A well-informed American knows the lineup of all the baseball teams in his favorite league and about half the words of the Star Spangled Banner." -Anonymous

"Baseball is the religion that worships the obvious and gives thanks that things are exactly as they seem." -Thomas Boswell

"Baseball could not survive without all the statistics." -John M. Culkin

"Religions know the truth. Baseball only has statistics." -Thomas Boswell

"You can talk to your wife again soon. Baseball season is nearly over." -Anonymous

Managers

"There are only two kinds of baseball managers. Those who have been fired and those who will be." -Anonymous

"What I will really be remembered for is sending a midget up to bat ... As a matter of fact, I don't mind if they put on my tombstone, ``He helped the little people." -Bill Veeck

"A good manager gets credit for all the home runs someone else hits." -Casey Stengel

Baseball and Science

"There is a time ``window'' about 3 milliseconds in duration in which a batter must swing                                      to hit a fast ball." -Sports Science- paraphrased

"It is widely agreed that there is a sweet spot which is the best point on the bat for the bat to strike the ball. But there are three conflicting theories about where that sweet spot is. So much for science." -Sports Science-paraphrased

"When it impacts a fast ball, a typical baseball bat is moving at seventy miles per hour at the point of impact." -Sports Science-paraphrased

Nike Add Quotes

"I believe Lou Gehrig's birthday should be a national holiday." -Nike Ad.

"I believe the squeeze play should be taught in public schools."  -Nike Ad.

"I believe somebody, somewhere, understands the infield fly rule." -Nike Ad.

"And I believe the two greatest words  in the English language  are Play Ball!  Play Ball!  Play Ball!  Play Ball!" -Nike Ad. 

"I believe hitting a round ball  with a round bat  is the hardest thing to do in all of sports." -Nike Ad.

Quotes From Bull Durham

"I believe in the Church of Baseball. I've tried all the major religions and most of the minor ones. And the only church that truly feeds the soul, day-in day-out, is the Church of Baseball." -Annie Savoy.

"I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days." - Crash Davis

"Know what the difference between hitting .250 and .300 is? It's 25 hits. 25 hits in 500 at bats is 50 points, okay? There's 6 months in a season, that's about 25 weeks. That means if you get just one extra flare a week - just one - a gorp... you get a groundball, you get a groundball with eyes... you get a dying quail, just one more dying quail a week... and you're in Yankee Stadium."  -Crash Davis

"There are 108 beads in a catholic rosary and 108 stitches in a baseball. When I
heard that, I gave Jesus a chance." - Annie Savoy

Walt Whitman once said, 'I see great things in Baseball. It's our game, the American game. It will repair our losses and be a blessing to us.'" - Annie Savoy

Other

"I can sit in a ballpark after a game and love looking at the field. Everybody's gone, and the ballpark is empty, and I'll sit there. I sit there and think, 'Is this as close to heaven as I'm going to get?' Or, 'If I get to heaven, will there be baseball?" -Kim Braatz-Voisard, Silver Bullets' center fielder, 1997.

"It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." -A. Bartlett Giamatti, "The Green Fields of the Mind"

"This is a simple game: You throw the ball, you hit the ball, you catch the ball. You got it!" - Skip

"A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while." - Nuke Laloosh

"Adversity cause some men to break; others to break records." —William A. Ward

"Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian." -H. L. Mencken

"I have no expectation of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average, not only for myself, but my team." -Franklin Roosevelt

"It’s not necessarily the amount of time you spend at practice that counts; it’s what you put into the practice." —Eric Lindros

"Baseball is taking life 90 feet at a time." -Roger Rosenblatt

"The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime." —Babe Ruth

"The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man’s determination" —Tommy Lasorda

"Any ball player that don't sign autographs for little kids, ain't American, he's a communist." -Rogers Hornsby

"There are two theories on hitting the knuckleball. Unfortunately neither of them work." -Charlie Lau, Chicago White Sox coach

"People carry radios to baseball games so they can be told what is happening before their very eyes." -Joel Oppenheimer

"I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures." -Chief Justice Earl Warren

"He will not talk with you unless you talk baseball." -Joe Williams about Rogers Hornsby
"You can't steal second with your foot on first." -Anonymous

"I went through life as a "Player to be named later!" -JOE GARAGIOLA, former catcher

"Baseball breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chili rains come, it stops and leaves you to face fall alone." -A. Bartlett Giamatti

"If you were a baseball player, your errors would be counted and published every day." -Anonymous

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