Baseball Legacy Quotes

All though I didn't meet him. His legend and his saga and his story is just that. Jackie Robinson, we all have to tip our hat to him. Because he made the game available to guys like me.

Why the fairy tale of Willie Mays making a brilliant World Series catch, and then dashing off to play stickball in the street with his teenage pals. That's baseball. So is the husky voice of a doomed Lou Gehrig saying, 'I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.'

I don't know that I've ever looked at baseball like a purely casual fan. That's just realistic when you grow up with it putting food on your table, and with it taking your dad out of town.

We in the Negro leagues felt like we were contributing something to baseball, too, when we were playing. We played with a round ball, and we played with a round bat. And we wore baseball uniforms, and we thought that we were making a contribution to baseball. We loved the game, and we liked to play it.

George Steinbrenner forever changed baseball and hopefully someday we will see him honored in baseball's Hall of Fame as one of the great figures in the history of sports.

I cannot but feel that the one man, above all others, who deserves the eternal thanks of his own race, and all thinking people, for bringing about baseball’s greatest reform, is Jackie Robinson himself…Certainly baseball people should be eternally grateful for the contribution he made to his own people, and to the game.

I really want to have a possibility of going into the Hall of Fame one day. I think that's huge with a lot of baseball writers and old school guys. Of course, that's not the main goal - the main goal is winning a World Series. Hall of Fame is so far away. It's just something I've always thought about doing. I want to be as clean as I can.

I'm always telling people baseball needs to be more prominent in the African American community. What a better way to do so, going on these TV shows and appearing on the cover of this or that. Now kids can see how baseball can change your life. Frank Thomas did that for me.

I do sincerely hope the Cubs win a World Series. After I die.

When they told me there would be a statue erected at Wrigley Field, I was happy with that. I know there will be a meeting place for a lot of people. There will be a conversation every day. They say now, 'I'll meet you at Ernie Banks' statue.' After Sept. 7, they'll say, 'I'll meet you by Billy Williams' statue.'

But baseball bounced back in the next decade to reclaim its place as the national pastime: new heroes, spirited competition, and booming prosperity gave birth to dreams of expansion, both within the major leagues and around the world.

I'm still a huge Yankees fan. Growing up, Jeter was my guy, but Bernie Williams was my favorite player.

I want to finish my career in Cleveland. They gave me the opportunity to play in the big leagues.

I have been blessed to win a number of awards and be involved in numerous historical baseball moments over my 20-year career with the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres.

Bill Veeck was a charismatic and somewhat eccentric owner-fan during the post-WWII years.

It's a wonderful feeling to be a bridge to the past and to unite generations. The sport of baseball does that, and I am just a part of it.

When I was a little boy, I didn't know what the Hall of Fame was. I was just playing the game of baseball, and I wanted to be just like my dad.

Few names have left a firmer imprint upon the pages of the history of American times than has that of Ty Cobb... he seems to have understood that in the competition of baseball, just as in war, defensive strategy never has produced ultimate victory.

My father loved baseball and he cultivated my talent. I don't think he ever had any doubt in his mind that I would play professional baseball someday.

I had no future with the Dodgers, because I was too closely identified with Branch Rickey. After the club was taken over by Walter O'Malley, you couldn't even mention Mr. Rickey's name in front of him. I considered Mr. Rickey the greatest human being I had ever known.

Baseball will miss Steinbrenner. He did a lot of great things-and some not so great-but it's a sad day for baseball, no doubt about it. He was a winner, and he made the Yankees a winner.

When you do some things in baseball in the city where you grow up and then you come back on a second opportunity, it's special.

I would love to see as many of the black players as possible in today's Major League Baseball make every effort to go to the Negro Leagues Museum and get a first-hand view of how it all started.

Even though I was never a Yankee fan until I put on the uniform, when you think about the deep history of this organization, you always knew what the Yankees represented.

I hope by the time that I'm done in this game, I can have half the numbers Stan Musial had in his career.