Babe Ruth

“What the hell has Hoover got to do with it? Anyway, I had a better year than he did.”

“Brother Matthias had the right idea about training a baseball club. He made every boy on the team play every position in the game, including the bench. A kid might pitch a game one day and find himself behind the…”

“I always swing at the ball with all my might. I hit or miss big and when I miss I know it long before the umpire calls a strike on me, for every muscle in my back, shoulders and arms…”

“There's one thing in baseball that always gets my goat and that's the intentional pass. It isn't fair to the batter. It isn't fair to his club. It's a raw deal for the fans and it isn't baseball. By "baseball,"…”

“I'm glad that I've played every position on the team, because I feel that I know more about the game and what to expect of the other fellows. Lots of times I hear men being roasted for not doing this…”

“The one that I missed.”

“I am going through with my barnstorming tour to the end. Bob Meusel and the other Yanks on my club agree with me that it will not hurt the game, as Landis fears. In fact, if anything, it will create…”

“A man who works for another is not going to be paid any more than he is worth; you can bet on that. A man ought to get what he can earn. Don't make any difference whether it's running a…”

“That kid sure can bust 'em.”

“Don't worry about my weight. Fifteen pounds more and I'll be grand. I never felt better in my life. I'm going to lead the league in batting again and maybe I'll make a new home run record.”

“Hotter than hell, ain't it, Prez?”

“To My Friend John Sylvester, Just a few words reminding you that I have not forgotten my sick little pal. Sorry I couldn’t get out to see you but here’s hoping this little message of cheer finds you well on…”

“Baseball always has been and always will be a game demanding team play. You can have the nine greatest individual ball players in the world, but if they don't play together the club won't be worth a dime.”

“Say, if I hadn't been sick last summer, I'd have broken hell out of that home run record! Besides, the President gets a four-year contract. I'm only asking for three.✱”

“As Duke Ellington once said, "the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Elkton." [...] About that Wellington guy, I wouldn't know. Ellington, yes. As for that Eton business — well, I married my first wife in…”

“I'd play for half my salary if I could hit in this dump all the time.”

“I decided to pick out the greatest hitter to watch and study, and Jackson was good enough for me. I liked the way he kept his right foot forward, being a left-handed hitter, and his left foot back. That gave…”

“You can bother me to autograph anything you want. When you quit bothering me to sign autographs, then I'll know I'm through. Slip me the old apple and a pen. And tell 'em to keep on bothering me.”

“You're an awful little guy to be such a big thief.”

“Nothing to it. Those Yankees were the best team. Figure it out. After we got going we won twelve straight World Series games—twelve in a row. It was murder. The Red Sox had the greatest outfield with Lewis, Speaker and…”

“In pitching, control is the main thing—one thing you've got to have. Few pitchers have it. In batting, it is timing—waiting on the ball, not hurrying the swing—just as it is in golf. Most hitters in baseball swing too quickly.…”

“Make no mistake about that. The old boy was the greatest player I ever saw or hope to see. When I was pitching I had fair success against all the other great hitters, but Cobb was one guy I never…”

“They did that to me in the American League one year. I coulda hit .600 that year slicing singles to left. [Interviewer asks why he didn't do so.] That's not what the fans came out to see.”

“Going to tell you something, Hank. Hand me that bat. Now I'm going to show you the whole secret of how I hit those home runs. Only fellow I ever told it to was Lou Gehrig, when poor Lou first…”

“I was a bad kid. I say this without pride but with a feeling that it is better to say it. I live with one great hope: to help kids who now stand where I stood as a boy. If…”

“I think my mother hated me.”

“It was at St. Mary’s that I met and learned to love the greatest man I’ve ever known. His name was Brother Matthias. He was the father I needed. He taught me to read and write — and he taught…”

“I didn't mean to hit the umpire with the dirt, but I did mean to hit that bastard in the stands.”

“Leo never was much of a hitter. I tried to help him once. I suggested that he become a switch-hitter and that if he did, his average would jump up to .400. "Two hundred right-handed and two hundred left," I…”

“I guess I should have written two books of my life, one for the adults and another for the kids.”

“Yes, he's a prick, but he sure can hit. God Almighty, that man can hit!”

“A ballplayer should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill.”

“If it wasn't for baseball, I'd be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery. I have the same violent temper my father and older brother had. Both died of injuries from street fights in Baltimore, fights begun by flare-ups of…”

“I only have one superstition: I make sure to touch all the bases when I hit a home run.”

“If I'd just tried for them dinky singles I could've batted around six hundred!”

“I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball. In boxing, your fist usually stops when you hit a man, but its possible to hit so hard that your fist doesn't stop. I…”

“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”

“I'll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will I give up women. They're too much fun.”

“I copied Jackson's style because I thought he was the greatest hitter I had ever seen, the greatest natural hitter I ever saw. He's the guy who made me a hitter.”