PLAY BALL!

Ninety percent of the game is half mental. ~Yogi Berra

You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping abaseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way aroundall the time. ~Jim Bouton, Ball Four, 1970

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.~Rogers Hornsby

Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeedthree times out of ten and be considered a good performer. ~Ted Williams

I’m convinced that every boy, in his heart, would rather steal second base than an automobile. ~Tom Clark

A hot dog at the ballgame beats roast beef at the Ritz. ~Humphrey Bogart

You gotta be a man to play baseball for a living, but you gotta have a lot of little boy in you, too. ~Roy Campanella

No game in the world is as tidy and dramatically neat asbaseball, with cause and effect, crime and punishment, motive andresult, so cleanly defined. ~Paul Gallico

There are three things in my life which I really love: God, myfamily, and baseball. The only problem – once baseball season starts, Ichange the order around a bit. ~Al Gallagher, 1971

A baseball game is simply a nervous breakdown divided into nine innings. ~Earl Wilson

Baseball was made for kids, and grown-ups only screw it up. ~Bob Lemon

What is both surprising and delightful is that spectators areallowed, and even expected, to join in the vocal part of the game….There is no reason why the field should not try to put the batsman offhis stroke at the critical moment by neatly timed disparagements of hiswife’s fidelity and his mother’s respectability. ~George Bernard Shaw

I see great things in baseball. It’s our game – the Americangame. It will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, givethem a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being anervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us.~Walt Whitman

Baseball is a fun game. It beats working for a living. ~Phil Linz

When they start the game, they don’t yell, “Work ball.” They say, “Play ball.” ~Willie Stargell, 1981

Back then, my idol was Bugs Bunny, because I saw a cartoon ofhim playing ball – you know, the one where he plays every positionhimself with nobody else on the field but him? Now that I think of it,Bugs is still my idol. You have to love a ballplayer like that. ~NomarGarciaparra

I don’t want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it. ~Rogers Hornsby

When you’re in a slump, it’s almost as if you look out at the field and it’s one big glove. ~Vance Law

With those who don’t give a damn about baseball, I can onlysympathize. I do not resent them. I am even willing to concede thatmany of them are physically clean, good to their mothers and in favorof world peace. But while the game is on, I can’t think of anything tosay to them. ~Art Hill

That’s baseball, and it’s my game. Y’ know, you take yourworries to the game, and you leave ’em there. You yell like crazy foryour guys. It’s good for your lungs, gives you a lift, and nobody callsthe cops. ~Humphrey Bogart

When we played softball, I’d steal second base, feel guilty and go back. ~Woody Allen

Baseball is a game where a curve is an optical illusion, ascrewball can be a pitch or a person, stealing is legal and you canspit anywhere you like except in the umpire’s eye or on the ball. ~JimMurray

Good pitching will beat good hitting any time, and vice versa. ~Bob Veale, 1966