Babe Ruth Quotes

That's easy. The new rules have made these pitchers turn square, and their offerings have been clouted. I know some pitchers who used the old emery and the shiner and all the rest, and they were bearcats. Now they have to get by on their natural ability and they don't rate so high. I can think of one pitcher who was a wonder last year. They took the old sail ball away from him, and now he hasn't enough to get by in a good class AA league. So it goes. They say that the ball is livelier. I think that is the old bunk. The pitchers are not pitching as they used to and the batters have a better chance.

Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.

I always swing at the ball with all my might. I hit or miss big and when I miss I know it long before the umpire calls a strike on me, for every muscle in my back, shoulders and arms is groaning, "You missed it." And be­lieve me, it is no fun to miss a ball that hard. Once I put myself out of the game for a few days by a miss like that.

We had a lot of fun with Casey all through the Series. There never was anything abusive about him. We rode him just to hear his clownish comebacks. I know I kidded him plenty. And when he won the 1 to 0 game, he ran around the bases with his thumb to his nose and his hand pointed to the Yankee bench. I think it was meant for me in particular as he tried to show me he, too, knew how to hit home runs. Ruppert didn't like it and later said it was undignified. But we didn't mind Casey having his fun.

Speaking of that last contract signing reminds me of a good laugh I had at the expense of the newspaper boys. There were a couple of dozen of them sticking around when I signed, some of them fellows who had been traveling with the Yankees for several seasons; fellows whom I know intimately and well. Yet in their stories, every one of them wrote about me signing that contract with my left hand and some of the newspapers even ran pictures showing me signing left-handed! How they managed it I don't know—for as a matter of fact I write with my right hand now, and I always have. I'm left-handed in everything else I do, but when it comes to writing I'm as right-handed as any right-hander you ever saw. It just goes to show that people take a lot of things for granted. They don't observe things closely, particularly things about which they feel confident.

The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime.

You should always go to other people funerals, or they wont go to yours.

never let the fear of striking out get in your way.

That kid sure can bust 'em.

My idea of a real ball player is the fellow who can take the bad breaks with a grin and come up fighting is the type I mean. A slump doesn't bother Tony any. He don't like them any more than the rest of us—but when one comes he just gets sore and fights his way out of it. And that's what it takes to make a ball player. is that sort and so is . I've seen Meusel go through 10 or 12 games without a hit, and be fighting just as hard and swinging just as hard as he did from the start. And that's the spirit that wins.

It was at St. Mary’s that I met and learned to love the greatest man I’ve ever known. His name was Brother Matthias. He was the father I needed. He taught me to read and write — and he taught me the difference between right and wrong.

Nobody but a blankety-blank fool would-a done what I did that day. When I think what-a idiot I'd a been if I'd struck out and I could-a, too, just as well as not because I was mad and I'd made up my mind to swing at the next pitch if I could reach it with a bat. Boy, when I think of the good breaks in my life ... that was one of them. [...] But right now I want to settle all arguments: I din't exactly point to any spot, like the flagpole. Anyway, I didn't mean to. I just sorta waved at the whole fence, but that was foolish enough. All I wanted to do was give that thing a ride ... outta the park ... anywhere.

Nothing to it. Those Yankees were the best team. Figure it out. After we got going we won twelve straight World Series games—twelve in a row. It was murder. The Red Sox had the greatest outfield with Lewis, Speaker and Hooper. But the Yankees had the greatest punch baseball ever knew. We never even worried five or six runs behind. Ruth—Gehrig—Lazerri—Combs—Dickey—wham, wham, and wham—no matter who was pitching.

You can bother me to autograph anything you want. When you quit bothering me to sign autographs, then I'll know I'm through. Slip me the old apple and a pen. And tell 'em to keep on bothering me.

I'm glad that I've played every position on the team, because I feel that I know more about the game and what to expect of the other fellows. Lots of times I hear men being roasted for not doing this or that when I know, from my all round experience, that they couldn't have been expected to do it. It's a pity some of our critics hadn't learned the game from every position.