Baseball Quotes

I used to think Romeo and Juliet was the greatest love story ever written. But now that I’m middle-aged, I know better. Oh, Romeo certainly thinks he loves his Juliet. Driven by hormones, he unquestionably lusts for her. But if he loves her, it’s a shallow love. You want proof?” Cagney didn’t wait for Dr. Victor to say yay or nay.“Soon after meeting her for the first time, he realizes he forgot to ask her for her name. Can true love be founded upon such shallow acquaintance? I don’t think so. And at the end, when he thinks she’s dead, he finds no comfort in living out the remainder of his life within the paradigm of his love, at least keeping alive the memory of what they had briefly shared, even if it was no more than illusion, or more accurately, hormonal.“Those of us watching events unfold from the darkness know she merely lies in slumber. But does he seek the reason for her life-like appearance? No. Instead he accuses Death of amorousness, convinced that the ‘lean abhorred monster’ endeavors to keep Juliet in her present state, her cheeks flushed, so that she might cater to his own dissolute desires. But does Romeo hold her in his arms one last time and feel the warmth of her blood still coursing through her veins? Does he pinch her to see if she might awaken? Hold a mirror to her nose to see if her breath fogs it? Once, twice, three times a ‘no.’”Cagney sighed, listened to the leather creak as he shifted his weight in his chair.“No,” he repeated. “His alleged love is so superficial and selfish that he seeks to escape the pain of loss by taking his own life. That’s not love, but obsessive infatuation. Had they wed—Juliet bearing many children, bonding, growing together, the masks of the star-struck teens they once were long ago cast away, basking in the comforting campfire of a love born of a lifetime together, not devoured by the raging forest fire of youth that consumes everything and leaves behind nothing—and she died of natural causes, would Romeo have been so moved to take his own life, or would he have grieved properly, for her loss and not just his own?

~ J. Conrad Guest

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.

~ Babe Ruth

Everyone has the fire, but the champions know when to ignite the spark.

~ Amit Ray

Self-discipline is a form of freedom. Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from expectations and demands of others, freedom from weakness and fear -- and doubt.

~ H.a. Dorfman

He has the body of a professional athlete, chiseled to perfection in all the right places.

~ Collette West

In any game, the game itself is the prize, no matter who wins, ultimately both lose the game.

~ Amit Kalantri

The thing I write will be the thing I write.

~ Steve Shilstone

If you don't think too good, don't think too much.

~ Ted Williams

There was a time we laughed at the old guys up on the hill. The ones who graduated a couple of years before us, and who would hang around the school and the ballpark still, and would sit on the hoods of their cars and tell us how when they were seniors they did it better, faster, and further. We laughed, because we were still doing it, and all they could do was talk. If our goals were not met, there was next year, but it never occurred to us that one day there would not be a next year, and that the guys sitting on the hoods of their cars at the top of the hill, wishing they could have one more year, willing to settle for one last game, could one day be us.

~ Tucker Elliot

Beside her, she can feel each breath he draws. How is it possible to be so close to a person and still not know what you are to each other? With baseball, it's simple. There's no mystery to what happens on the field because everything has a label -- full count, earned run, perfect game -- and there's a certain amount of comfort in this terminology. There's no room for confusion and Ryan wishes now that everything could be so straightforward. But then Nick pulls her closer, and she rests her head on his chest, and nothing seems more important that this right here.

~ Jennifer E. Smith

The sheer quantity of brain power that hurled itself voluntarily and quixotically into the search for new baseball knowledge was either exhilarating or depressing, depending on how you felt about baseball. The same intellectual resources might have cured the common cold, or put a man on Pluto.

~ Michael Lewis

You’re not going to always hit a home run in life. You’re going to strike out! You’re going to walk to the dugout of life, frustrated, while spectators chirp your name in judgment. They’re afraid to even get on the field, and you know it. The fact that you get back up there, unafraid, going after that next home run, makes you the person you are.

~ Ron Baratono

Champions never sleep, the eternal spirit keep them alert and awake.

~ Amit Ray

It is not over. Champions extend their limits and make things happen.

~ Amit Ray

If there was magic in this world, it happened within sight of the three bases and home plate. All the gems in my world that decorated the walls and floors of dragons' lairs, the sword hilts of privileged princes, and crowns worn by emperors and kings, were nothing compared to the beauty and splendor of the diamond in Wrigley Stadium. It wasn't just a yard with dirt, chalk lines, bases, and a small hill in its center. Wrigley was a field of dreams. Dreams of eternal glory for the men who ran to the outfield, who took their respective bases, and prepared for battle against those who would dare enter their hallowed realm. Dreams for the kids in the stands, all wanting to don a uniform, kiss their moms goodbye, and wield their bats as enchanted weapons destined to knock the cover off the ball. And for the adults who had already selected their lot in life, Wrigley made the dreams of past innocence, lost wonder, and the promise that there was something inherently good still left in the world, come true.Yeah, corny as hell. But all true.

~ Tee Morris

Men go to the ballpark with an assumed knowledge and interest, whereas women need to constantly demonstrate how much they know and care.

~ Stacey May Fowles

Sometimes a strikeout means that the slugger’s girlfriend just ran off with the UPS driver. Sometimes a muffed ground ball means that the shortstop’s baby daughter has a pain in her head that won’t go away. And handicapping is for amateur golfers, not ballplayers. Pitchers don’t ease off on the cleanup hitter because of the lumps just discovered in his wife’s breast. Baseball is not life. It is a fiction, a metaphor. And a ballplayer is a man who agrees to uphold that metaphor as though lives were at stake. Perhaps they are. I cherish a theory I once heard propounded by G.Q. Durham that professional baseball is inherently antiwar. The most overlooked cause of war, his theory runs, is that it’s so damned interesting. It takes hard effort, skill, love and a little luck to make times of peace consistently interesting. About all it takes to make war interesting is a life. The appeal of trying to kill others without being killed yourself, according to Gale, is that it brings suspense, terror, honor, disgrace, rage, tragedy, treachery and occasionally even heroism within range of guys who, in times of peace, might lead lives of unmitigated blandness. But baseball, he says, is one activity that is able to generate suspense and excitement on a national scale, just like war. And baseball can only be played in peace. Hence G.Q.’s thesis that pro ball-players—little as some of them may want to hear it—are basically just a bunch of unusually well-coordinated guys working hard and artfully to prevent wars, by making peace more interesting.

~ David James Duncan

The problem is politics is made a sport, almost as much a sport as football or baseball. When it comes to politics, adults and politicians do more finger-pointing and play more games than children ever do. Too often are we rooting for the pride of a team rather than the good of the nation.

~ Criss Jami

Well, did anything interesting happen today?' [my father] would begin. And even before the daily question was completed I had eagerly launched into my narrative of every play, and almost every pitch, of that afternoon's contest. It never crossed my mind to wonder if, at the close of a day's work, he might find my lengthy account the least bit tedious. For there was mastery as well as pleasure in our nightly ritual. Through my knowledge, I commanded my father's undivided attention, the sign of his love. It would instill in me an early awareness of the power of narrative, which would introduce a lifetime of storytelling, fueled by the naive confidence that others would find me as entertaining as my father did.

~ Doris Kearns Goodwin

You have intellect, and courage, and command. Play your own game, and don't worry about what anyone else is doing. That is what's going to give you a shot at making it. Comparing yourself to anyone else will just drive you crazy.

~ Ellen Emerson White

New Rule: Don't name your kid after a ballpark. Cubs fans Paul and Teri Fields have named their newborn son Wrigley. Wrigley Fields. A child is supposed to be an independent individual, not a means of touting your own personal hobbies. At least that's what I've always taught my kids, Panama Red and Jacuzzi.

~ Bill Maher

That's sounds right. Another $5,000 went to dress up the Little League park where he had played so many games. Seems like he paid off the MORTAGE on his parents' home, which wasn't that much.

~ John Grisham

How soon do you think it is? Time will tell me. When it's autumn, the leaves fall. When the time comes, I'll know it. [Responding to a question about when he will start throwing his slider in his attempt to comeback from a career-ending stroke.]

~ J.r. Richard

And so, my beloved Kermit, my dear little Hussein, at the moment America changed forever, your father was wandering an ICBM-denuded watseland, nervously monitoring his radiation level, armed only with a baseball bat, a 10mm pistol, and six rounds of ammunition, in search of a vicious gang of mohawked marauders who were 100 percent bad news and totally had to be dealth with. Trust Daddy on this one.

~ Tom Bissell

Baseball isn't just a game. It's life being played out on a field—a field of dreams—on diamonds of green, where players pursuing their dreams try to be the best they can be on the grandest stage of all—where men become boys and boys become men, all speaking one universal language without uttering a single word.

~ Tom Tatum

Henry successfully kept his mind on the game, which might seem strange for a boy who slept beside a wall of magic. But baseball was as magical to him as a green, mossy mountain covered in ancient trees. What's more, baseball was a magic he could run around in and laugh about. While the magic of the cupboards was not necessarily good, the smell of leather mixed with dusty sweat and spitting and running through sparse grass after a small ball couldn't be anything else.

~ N.d. Wilson

A man has to have goals - for a day, for a lifetime - and that was mine, to have people say, 'There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived.

~ Ted Willams

But Little League can be a great experience for kids, as long as they want to play--and don't play to bring their parents glory.

~ Yogi Berra

This girl owns me, whether she realizes it or not. I'm a slave to her will.

~ Collette West

His lips are against my ear and I feel the warmth of his body surrounding me, caging me in, comforting me.

~ Collette West

This kiss was different from the first one under the olive tree. That one had been unplanned, she was pretty sure. This kiss had intention and hunger branded all over it. It was like one of those kisses you read about in fairy tales—but Alana had never imagined that such a kiss could cause bone-trembling shivers as well as bliss. She’d never considered the downside of the awakening kiss, of how the princess felt when the hero tore through the thorns or scaled the tower and speared heat and sex and life-changing energy into the princess’s world.

~ Pamela Aares

He’s letting me see the real him, something he doesn’t allow a lot of people to see.

~ Collette West

My heart starts to pound as he gets closer and closer to the stands, never taking his eyes off me.

~ Collette West

A soft moan escapes me, making him smile even more. He's too good at this.

~ Collette West

I’m frozen in place as his eyes rake over me.

~ Collette West

I guess somethings turned out too sad even to be explained with a bases-loaded strikeout.

~ Ava Dellaira

Perhaps crossing the barriers of time has freed me.

~ W.p. Kinsella

Who’s winning?”“I don’t have a f*cking clue nor do I f*cking care.”Echo’s head ticks back.“Back off, Beth.” I cross the room, drop a kiss on the curve of Echo’s neck and whisper in her ear, “She’d rip me to pieces, too, right now. She’s a b*tch when the Yankees play.”Her eyebrows rise. “Is she a Red Sox fan?”Isaiah chuckles and we both throw him a glare, but he doesn’t notice as he’s absorbed in a car manual.“Beth hates baseball.”Echo’s eyes dart from Beth to the television to me then she waves her hand in the air for an explanation.“She watches,” I explain. “Yankees only. It’s what she does and there are some things we don’t question about each other.”“Just the Yankees?” Echo whispers.“Just the Yankees,” I repeat.“And she hates baseball?”“With a passion.”“That’s...” Echo says in a hushed tone. “That’s messed up.

~ Katie Mcgarry

Being a parent is like being a catcher. You gotta handle whatever is thrown your way.

~ Tom Swyers

No, I would not say that assault with a baseball bat constitutes justice being done.

~ Garth Ennis