If you could equate the amount of time and effort put in mentally and physically into succeeding on the baseball field and measured it by the dirt on your uniform, mine would have been black.

Any time you think you have the game conquered, the game will turn around and punch you right in the nose.

Pete Rose is the most likable arrogant person I've ever met.

I could ask the Phillies to keep me on to add to my statistics, but my love for the game won't let me do that.

If you could equate the amount of time and effort put in mentally and physically into succeeding on the baseball field and measured it by the dirt on your uniform, mine would have been black.

I don't think I can get into my deep inner thoughts about hitting. It's like talking about religion.

Virtually every civilized society today holds sacred the right to peaceably bury their dead.

They read their sports pages, know their statistics and either root like hell or boo our butts off. I love it. Give me vocal fans, pro or con, over the tourist types who show up in Houston or Montreal and just sit there.

Gold Gloves are nice to have people mention. They're basically saying you're a pretty good defensive player along with everything else. But I was about the offensive side.

I sort of ride the fence on that whole steroid era issue. I don't have a definite opinion like some of my fellow Hall of Famers. Some of the guys were very, very adamant about a person being associated with steroids: 'They'll never be in the Hall of Fame. If they are, I'll never come back.'

I'm 61 now, and I'm comfortable in my lifestyle... I don't yearn for the limelight on a regular basis. I get a kick out of it every so often. I go to Philly and go to a game, and they make a big deal about me. That's fun for a couple of days, and I can go back to my own private life.

I've got to tell you right out of the chute, Ryan Howard, to me, is very interested in my input in his hitting. To me that makes me really feel good. We've chatted over the years about hitting.

That was one of the most comfortable things about leaving baseball was to leave the environment. It's very much like a rock star existence - the nightlife, the hotels, lack of privacy... There's a lot of temptations out there. It was nice getting away from it.

Philadelphia is the only city, where you can experience the thrill of victory and the agony of reading about it the next day.

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.