It's tempting, because as one senator said to me, 'We know if we invite baseball down, we'll draw a crowd'.

I think it would have been a lot better for him to say, I did it and I'm sorry, McGwire was never one to show a lot of emotion on the field, not a player who sought attention and craved to be thought of as a nice guy.

I can't be optimistic. I can be hopeful.

This is a coup for commissioner Bud Selig. I'm surprised it's as good as it is.

It was a terrible day for baseball, it was a worse day for Congress.

It's tempting, because as one senator said to me, 'We know if we invite baseball down, we'll draw a crowd'.

I believe that, too, it's hard to believe that anybody could not believe that.

It's not in baseball's interest or the players' interest to be taking this stance. It's the people's game.

The final ballots represent players, managers, executives and builders who are top-tier candidates and worthy of review for consideration for election to the Hall of Fame.

Certainly toward the end of the season, you and I could be in a ballpark and they might say the crowd is 30,000, and we could look around and see that there was no more than 10,000.

The economics of baseball are the big problem. The big clubs make a lot of money and the little clubs don't.

The student body was huge at UT and you had to mature pretty quick, very quick actually. I enjoyed it and it helped me a lot in my life in general - not only in the classroom but on the baseball field as well.

Poets are like baseball pitchers. Both have their moments. The intervals are the tough things.

Do what you love to do and give it your very best. Whether it's business or baseball, or the theater, or any field. If you don't love what you're doing and you can't give it your best, get out of it. Life is too short. You'll be an old man before you know it.

These old ballparks are like cathedrals in America. We don't have big old Gothic cathedrals like they do in Europe. But we got baseball parks.

Whenever I wasn't watching the planes, I was playing community baseball, football, or something like that.

Baseball hasn't been the national pastime for many years now - no sport is. The national pastime, like it or not, is watching television.

Baseball is a team game.

I never ride just to ride. I ride to catch a fox. I play baseball to make the team.

Baseball is a game where a curve is an optical illusion, a screwball can be a pitch or a person, stealing is legal and you can spit anywhere you like except in the umpire's eye or on the ball.

I wish that they had the freedoms like the Japanese and the Koreans and the Mexicans and everybody else that has that freedom to come over here and play the game, because I know Cuba has a very strong baseball history.

I knew I wasn't a baseball writer. I was scared to death. I really was afraid to talk to players, and I didn't want to go into the press box because I thought I was faking it.

Baseball is almost the only orderly thing in a very unorderly world. If you get three strikes, even the best lawyer in the world can't get you off.

Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?

After Jackie Robinson the most important black in baseball history is Reggie Jackson, I really mean that.

The great thing about baseball is when you're done, you'll only tell your grandchildren the good things. If they ask me about 1989, I'll tell them I had amnesia.

You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.

A baseball game is simply a nervous breakdown divided into nine innings.

Baseball is like church. Many attend few understand.

I don't know what you guys say, but at home, life is way different from baseball.

Let the teachers teach English and I will teach baseball. There is a lot of people in the United States who say isn't, and they ain't eating.

Words can be like baseball bats when used maliciously.

I don't know anything about baseball.

I was born to hit a baseball. I can hit a baseball.

Richard Schiff is a really good baseball player. It's surprising because he looks exhausted.

It's very warm there, so we were outdoors all the time. The local people had programs for us year-round, where as kids we had the opportunity to play football, basketball, baseball, track and field - we just went from one sport to the next, year-round.

I'm proud to be here as a man that has played first base more than anybody in the game of baseball.

I always thought that there was going to be life after baseball, and so I designed that in my life I would have other interests after baseball that I would be able to step into. And I didn't realize the grip that baseball had on me and on my family.

People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.

Well, my favorite sport as a kid was clearly baseball.

God knows I gave my best in baseball at all times and no man on earth can truthfully judge me otherwise.

Baseball is more than a game to me, it's a religion.

Baseball people, and that includes myself, are slow to change and accept new ideas. I remember that it took years to persuade them to put numbers on uniforms.

Cricket is basically baseball on valium.

I know it's tough. Everybody in baseball knows its tough. I'm just going to give it my best shot.

These days baseball is different. You come to spring training, you get your legs ready, you arms loose, your agents ready, your lawyer lined up.

I think we have our sports within our own culture that are huge with baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. Those are the sports in America that we grow up with and soccer isn't really there yet.

I had the pleasure, as Robin said, to live a childhood dream as many young Americans and Puerto Rican children live that play youth baseball. And I feel honored and very thankful for that opportunity.

I'm flattered that so many baseball people think I'm a Hall of Famer. But what's hard to believe is how one-hundred and fifty plus people have changed their minds about me since I became eligible, because I haven't had a base hit since then.