Baseball Quotes

From Casey Stengel:
“You have to have a catcher because if you don’t you’re likely to have a lot of passed balls.”
They say some of my stars drink whiskey. But I have found that the ones who drink milkshakes don’t win many ballgames."
“The way our luck has been lately, our fellas have been getting hurt on their days off.”

Bob Lemon, former manager and Hall of Fame pitcher:
I never took the game home with me. I always stopped and left it in some bar on the way home.

Bob Uecker
“Anybody with ability can play in the big leagues. But to be able to trick people year in and year out the way I did, I think that was a much greater feat.”

“If a guy hits .300 every year, what does he have to look forward to? I always tried to stay around .190, with three or four RBI. And I tried to get them all in September. That way I always had something to talk about during the winter.”

“I signed with the Milwaukee Braves out of high school for $3,000. That bothered my dad at the time because he just couldn’t come up with that kind of dough.”

“People don’t know this but I helped the Cardinals win the pennant. I came down with hepatitis. The trainer injected me with it.”

On how to catch a knuckleball: “Wait until it stops rolling and pick it up.”

Lefty Gomez

“I talked to the ball a lot of times in my career. I yelled, ‘Go foul. Go foul.’”

“I was the worst hitter ever. I never even broke a bat until last year when I was backing out of the garage.”

“I am throwing twice as hard as I ever did. It’s just not getting there as fast.”

Mickey Rivers:
On being told that Reggie Jackson had an IQ of 140: “Out of what? A thousand?”

These next two are from memory so my apologies for not naming the source:
In the late 1980s in a Atlanta at Cincinnati game the Braves’ pitcher gave up three straight home runs. After each homer the stadium crew shot off some fireworks in celebration. After the third one the Braves pitching coach went to the mound and said to the pitcher, “I don’t have any advice for you. I just wanted to give them a chance to reload the cannon.”

Someone once said of much disliked Oakland A’s owner Charlie O. Finley, “He’s a self-made man who worships his creator.”

“I couldn’t drive Miss Daisy home” - Andy VanSlyke on a hitting slump

“Slump? I aint in no slump. I’m just not hitting”- Yogi Berra

“This is a tough park for a hitter when the air conditioning is blowing in.” - Bob Boone (re: The Astrodome)

Uecker could have his own thread. Some good ones:

“The cops picked me up on a street at 3:00 am and fined me $500 for being drunk and $100 for being with the Phillies.”

“The highlight of my career? In '67 with St. Louis, I walked with the bases loaded to drive in the winning run in an intersquad game in spring training.”

“I remember one time I’m batting against the Dodgers in Milwaukee. They lead, 2 - 1, it’s the bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, two out and the pitcher has a full count on me. I look over to the Dodger dugout and they’re all in street clothes.”

“In 1962 I was named Minor League Player of the Year. It was my second season in the Bigs.”

“I set records that will never be equaled. In fact, I hope 90% of them don’t even get printed.”