Red Smith Quotes

It's easy, man. I just take the ball and throw. Hard! It's a God-given talent! No one can teach it to you. They either hit it or they don't.

When I speak of natural drummers I'm talking about guys that are playing with the talent God gave 'em.

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

I was born with a natural gift. My mother recognized the talent.

Actors are not made, they are born.

Genius will live and thrive without training, but it does not the less reward the watering pot and the pruning knife.

What I like is natural music. It's like I was born with a gift to do something naturally, which I have no choice but to followup on.

Pete Rose is baseball.

I think the best all-round baseball player ever was Joe DiMaggio.

There is no such thing as a natural boxer. A natural dancer has to practice hard. A natural painter has to paint all the time. Even a natural fool has to work at it.

You either have the magic or you don't. There's no way you can work up to it.

Do not envy those who seem to be naturally gifted; it is often a curse, as such types rarely learn the value of diligence and focus, and they pay for this later in life.

I may have got (Paul) Waner out, but I never fooled him.

Literature, like nobility, runs in the blood.

If Mozart, instead of playing the pianoforte at three years old with wonderfully little practice, had played a tune with no practice at all, he might truly have been said to have done so instinctively.

I'm no George Brett, and I probably never will be.

Jimmy Foxx could hit me at midnight with the lights out.

Christy Mathewson brought something to baseball no one else had ever given the game. He handed the game a certain touch of class, an indefinable lift in culture, brains, and personality.

Talent is what drives this world ... Doesn’t matter how many satellites you f---ing stick in the air.

First of all a natural talent is required; for when Nature opposes, everything else is in vain; but when Nature leads the way to what is most excellent, instruction in the art takes place.

From when I was really young one of the first things I did was to perform and do shows. It was like a natural instinct.

He batted against spitballs, shineballs, emeryballs and all the other trick deliveries. He never figured anything out or studied anything with the same scientific approach I gave it. He just swung. If he'd ever had any knowledge of batting, his average would have been phenomenal. ... he seemed content to just punch the ball, and I can still see those line drives whistling to the far precincts. Joe Jackson hit the ball harder than any man ever to play baseball.

I copied (Shoeless Joe) Jackson's style because I thought he was the greatest hitter I had ever seen, the greatest natural hitter I ever saw. He's the guy who made me a hitter.