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"I can still throw in the seventies. And I can throw it in the eighties if I don't want to comb my hair for a week."
"Baseball in the Navy always was much more fun than it had been in the major leagues."
"Where the ball went was up to heaven. Sometimes I threw the ball clean up into the stands."
"When I pick up the ball and it feels nice and light and small I know I'm going to have a good day. But if I picked it up and it's big and heavy, I know I'm liable to get into a little trouble."
"You figure they cheat at the ballpark, they'll cheat on the golf course, they'll cheat in business, and anything else in life. Players may laugh about it and say it's funny, but right down in their heart, they don't think it's funny at all, and they have no respect for a person who cheats."
"The difference between relief pitching when I did it today is simple, there is too much of it. It's one of those cases where more is not necessarily better."
"I don't think baseball owes colored people anything. I don't think colored people owe baseball anything, either."
"Ted Williams was the greatest hitter I ever saw, but (Joe) DiMaggio was the greatest all around player."
"Sympathy is something that shouldn't be bestowed upon the Yankees. Apparently it angers them."
"Nowadays, they have more trouble packing hair dryers than baseball equipment."
"I just reared back and let them go."
"I would rather beat the Yankees regularly than pitch a no hit game."
"If you believe your catcher is intelligent and you know that he has considerable experience, it is a good thing to leave the game almost entirely in his hands."
"Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is."
"When you make a bad pitch and the hitter puts it out of the park and you cost your team the game, it's a real test of your maturity to be able to stand in front of your locker fifteen minutes later and admit it to the world. How many people in other professions would be willing to have their job performances evaluated that way, in front of millions, every afternoon at five o'clock."
"As much as we disliked the Yankees, fans and players alike, they were good for baseball. They consistently unsuccessful teams like the Browns, Senators, and A's paid a lot of their bills with those big crowds that poured through the gates when the Yankees came to town."
"Changes have been profound and lasting. Others have been cosmetic, but today the under forty fans wouldn't know baseball without them. Exploding scoreboards, names on your back, numbers on your front, gloves when you're at bat as well as in the field, and baseball not just under the lights, but under the roof too, on artificial grass."
"As much as we disliked the Yankees, fans and players alike, they were good for baseball. They consistently unsuccessful teams like the Browns, Senators, and A's paid a lot of their bills with those big crowds that poured through the gates when the Yankees came to town."
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