Top 30 Ballplayer Quotes

I’m just a ballplayer with one ambition, and that is to give all I’ve got to help my ball club win. I’ve never played any other way.

A pitcher is not a ballplayer.

The Babe was a great ballplayer, sure, but Cobb was even greater. Babe could knock your brains out, but Cobb would drive you crazy.

I tried marriage. I’m 0 for 3 with the marriage thing. So, being a ballplayer – I believe in numbers. I’m not going 0 for 4. I’m not wearing a golden sombrero.

I wanted to show Baltimore that they were getting a good ballplayer.

There’s no doubt my having been a ballplayer made me feel a special sense of responsibility to Joe Jackson’s life.

To play 18 years in Yankee Stadium is the best thing that could ever happen to a ballplayer.

A ballplayer doesn’t make excuses.

I haven’t seen a player in this game, as long as I’ve been in it, that can’t be pitched to… Barry is an outstanding ballplayer. I respect him an awful lot. I also have confidence in my pitchers that they can pitch to Barry Bonds and get him out.

I refuse to be molded into some stereotypical ballplayer that has no interests, really, no life, no depth, no intelligence.

I have an ego like everyone else. I want to be recognized as a good ballplayer.

Twenty games is the magic figure for pitchers – .300 is the magic figures for batters. It pays off in salary and reputation. And those are the two things that keep a ballplayer in business.

I’m a ballplayer, not an actor.

I don’t want to be Babe Ruth. He was a great ballplayer. I’m not trying to replace him. The record is there and damn right I want to break it, but that isn’t replacing Babe Ruth.

I think the first photograph I did was a ballplayer. It was a way of showing action or something.

It’s very tough for a ballplayer to get proud and keep his dignity.

You must remember that anyone under 30 – especially a ballplayer – is an adolescent. I never got close to being an adult until I was 32. Even though I was married and had a son at 20, I was a kid at 32, living at home with my parents. Sure, I was a manager then. That doesn’t mean you’re grown up.

Any ballplayer that don’t sign autographs for little kids ain’t an American. He’s a communist.

I can’t do much about my height, but I can do a lot of things in strength and speed and work on that. I’m going to try to do that the best I can to make me a better ballplayer.

A great ballplayer is a player who will take a chance.

But I want you to know that what I’m doing here I’m doing as a ballplayer, a major league ballplayer.

I always could hit, but fielding I had to work at. I took as much pride in fielding as hitting. I became a complete ballplayer. I knew when to take the extra base. I knew about the outfielder hitting the cutoff man. I knew when and how to bunt. I knew when to hit-and-run.

I’m just the same as anybody else now. To get TB again, I’d have to go out and catch a whole new case of it. Let’s forget about it. I’m a ballplayer.

There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer.

You can look at everything from pre-Heisman to post-Heisman, and I think that’s why it ranks up at the top, because before then, I didn’t even think I was good enough to be a professional ballplayer.

Reading isn’t good for a ballplayer. Not good for his eyes. If my eyes went bad even a little bit I couldn’t hit home runs. So I gave up reading.

I’m proud of everything that I’ve accomplished since I was a little boy. That was my dream – to be a ballplayer. I didn’t dream to win so many Gold Gloves, or Silver Bats or play in All-Star Games or World Series. I was just dreaming to play the game.

I’m a ballplayer. Whoever picks me, I’m going to show up.

The more self-centered and egotistical a guy is, the better ballplayer he’s going to be.

I want to be remembered as a ballplayer who gave all I had to give.