All Quotes by Babe Ruth
“You just can't beat the person who never gives up.”
“Yesterday's home runs don't win today's games.”
“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.”
“Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world.”
“Don't ever forget two things I'm going to tell you. One, don't believe everything that's written about you. Two, don't pick up too many checks.”
“All ballplayers should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill.”
“Who is richer? The man who is seen, but cannot see? Or the man who is not being seen, but can see?”
“Paris ain't much of a town.”
“How about a little noise. How do you expect a man to putt?”
“Cobb is a prick. But he sure can hit. God Almighty, that man can hit.”
“If it wasn't for baseball, I'd be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery.”
“I won't be happy until we have every boy in America between the ages of six and sixteen wearing a glove and swinging a bat.”
“Gee, its lonesome in the outfield. It's hard to keep awake with nothing to do.”
“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”
“Let me show you how it's done... Loser!”
“Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.”
“I'll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will I give up women. They're too much fun.”
“I had only one superstition. I made sure to touch all the bases when I hit a home run.”
“As soon as I got out there I felt a strange relationship with the pitcher's mound. It was as if I'd been born out there. Pitching just felt like the most natural thing in the world. Striking out batters was easy.”
“All I can tell them is pick a good one and sock it. I get back to the dugout and they ask me what it was I hit and I tell them I don't know except it looked good.”
“I didn't mean to hit the umpire with the dirt, but I did mean to hit that bastard in the stands.”
“If I'd just tried for them dinky singles I could've batted around .600.”
“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 learned early to drink beer, wine and whiskey. And I think I was about 5 when I first chewed tobacco.”
“Baseball changes through the years. It gets milder.”
“You just can't beat the person who never gives up.”
“Yesterday's home runs don't win today's games.”
“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.”
“Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.”
“Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world.”
“You just can't beat the person who never gives up.”
“It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.”
“Yesterday's home runs don't win today's games.”
“Brother Matthias had the right idea about training a baseball club. He made every boy on the team play every position in the game, including the bench. A kid might pitch a game one day and find himself behind the bat the next or perhaps out in the sun-field. You see Brother Matthias' idea was to fit a boy to jump in in any emergency and make good. So whatever I have at the bat or on the mound or in the outfield or even on the bases, I owe directly to Brother Matthias.”
“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 be\xadlieve 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.”
“There's one thing in baseball that always gets my goat and that's the intentional pass. It isn't fair to the batter. It isn't fair to his club. It's a raw deal for the fans and it isn't baseball. By "baseball," I mean good square American sportsmanship because baseball represents America in sport. If we get down to unfair advantages in our national game we are putting out a mighty bad advertisement.”
“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.”
“The one that I missed.”
“I am going through with my barnstorming tour to the end. Bob Meusel and the other Yanks on my club agree with me that it will not hurt the game, as Landis fears. In fact, if anything, it will create more interest in next year's campaign for me to play out this tour. If Landis wants to put me out of organized baseball, let him do so. I will continue the tour.”
“A man who works for another is not going to be paid any more than he is worth; you can bet on that. A man ought to get what he can earn. Don't make any difference whether it's running a farm, running a bank or running a show; a man who knows he's making money for other people ought to get some of the profits he brings in. It's business, I tell you. There ain't no sentiment to it. Forget that stuff.”
“That kid sure can bust 'em.”
“"Don't worry about my weight. Fifteen pounds more and I'll be grand. I never felt better in my life. I'm going to lead the league in batting again and maybe I'll make a new home run record.”
“Hotter than hell, ain't it, Prez?”
“To My Friend John Sylvester, “Babe” Ruth.”
“It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up”
“,Babe Ruth”
“Baseball always has been and always will be a game demanding team play. You can have the nine greatest individual ball players in the world, but if they don't play together the club won't be worth a dime.”
“My answer to that [i.e. the question of whether Ruth hoped to set a new single-season HR record] was "No." I don't believe I can ever better my 60 mark that I made in 1927. And, frankly, I don't believe anyone else will beat it for a long time either.”
“Of course I'm not kidding myself. My recent illness proved to me that I've reached the place now where I've got to take particularly good care of myself. A lot of the boys have been kidding me because they said that illness "scared me to death." Frankly it did scare me and I'm still scared. I hope to stay scared to the point where I never forget that taking care of myself is the most important thing in my life from now on.”
“Say, if I hadn't been sick last summer, I'd have broken hell out of that home run record! Besides, the President gets a four-year contract. I'm only asking for three.”
“What the hell has Hoover got to do with it? Anyway, I had a better year than he did.”
“As Duke Ellington once said, "the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Elkton." [...] About that Wellington guy, I wouldn't know. Ellington, yes. As for that Eton business — well, I married my first wife in Elkton, and I always hated the place. It musta stuck.”
“I'd play for half my salary if I could hit in this dump all the time.”
“I decided to pick out the greatest hitter to watch and study, and Jackson was good enough for me. I liked the way he kept his right foot forward, being a left-handed hitter, and his left foot back. That gave him more body and shoulder power than the average hitter has.”
“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.”
“You're an awful little guy to be such a big thief.”
“In pitching, control is the main thing—one thing you've got to have. Few pitchers have it. In batting, it is timing—waiting on the ball, not hurrying the swing—just as it is in golf. Most hitters in baseball swing too quickly. They can't wait on the pitch. Old Joe Jackson could wait. So could Speaker and Cobb”
“Make no mistake about that. The old boy was the greatest player I ever saw or hope to see. When I was pitching I had fair success against all the other great hitters, but Cobb was one guy I never could get out. I had a reputation for being a slugger and I guess I could hit 'em pretty far at that, but that guy Cobb could do everything--better than any player I ever saw. Old Georgia Peach was a great hitter, a spectacular fielder, a wonderfui thrower and oh boy, how he could run.”
“They did that to me in the American League one year. I coulda hit .600 that year slicing singles to left. [Interviewer asks why he didn't do so.] That's not what the fans came out to see.”
“I was a bad kid. I say this without pride but with a feeling that it is better to say it. I live with one great hope: to help kids who now stand where I stood as a boy. If what I have to say here helps even one of them avoid some of my own mistakes, or take heart from such triumphs as I have had, this book will serve its purpose.”
“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”
“I think my mother hated me.”
“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.”
“I didn't mean to hit the umpire with the dirt, but I did mean to hit that bastard in the stands.”
“Leo never was much of a hitter. I tried to help him once. I suggested that he become a switch-hitter and that if he did, his average would jump up to .400. "Two hundred right-handed and two hundred left," I said.”
“Yes, he's a prick, but he sure can hit. God Almighty, that man can hit!”
“A ballplayer should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill.”
“If it wasn't for baseball, I'd be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery. I have the same violent temper my father and older brother had. Both died of injuries from street fights in Baltimore, fights begun by flare-ups of their tempers.”
“I only have one superstition: I make sure to touch all the bases when I hit a home run.”
“Keed, I'll give you a little bit of advice. Don't believe anything they write about you, good or bad. Two, get the dough while the getting is good, but don't break your heart trying to get it. And don't pick up too many checks!”
“If I'd just tried for them dinky singles I could've batted around six hundred!”
“I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball. In boxing, your fist usually stops when you hit a man, but its possible to hit so hard that your fist doesn't stop. I try to follow through in the same way. The harder you grip the bat, the more you can swing it through the ball, and the farther the ball will go. I swing big, with everything I've got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can.”
“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”
“I'll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will I give up women. They're too much fun.”
“I copied 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.”
“Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. You know how bad my voice sounds. Well, it feels just as bad. You know this baseball game of ours comes up from the youth. That means the boys. And after you've been a boy, and grow up to know how to play ball, then you come to the boys you see representing themselves today in our national pastime.”
“The only real game — I think — in the world is baseball.”
“There's been so many lovely things said about me, and I'm glad that I've had the opportunity to thank everybody. Thank you.”