“Let’s face it. Umpiring is not an easy or happy way to make a living. In the abuse they suffer, and the pay they get for it, you see an imbalance that can only be explained by their need to stay close to a game they can’t resist.”

I used to soak my mitts in a bucket of water for about two days. Then I’d put a couple of baseballs in the pocket and wrap it up with a rubber band.

The way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and then pick it up.

I knew when my career was over. In 1965 my baseball card came out with no picture.

I hit a grand slam off Ron Herbel and when his manager Herman Franks came out to get him, he was bringing Herbel’s suitcase.

People have asked me a lot of times, because I didn’t hit a lot, how long a dozen bats would last me.

Today you don’t have to do that, because catchers’ mitts are more like first baseman’s gloves.

Phil Niekro and his brother were pitching against each other in Atlanta. Their parents were sitting right behind home plate.

I saw their folks more that day than they did the whole weekend.

I don’t like losing. But I don’t think I ever go to the park where I have a bad day. I don’t think once.

I always tried to stay around .190, with three or four RBI. And I tried to get them all in September. That way I always had something to talk about during the winter.

Depending on the weight and model I was using at that time – I would say eight to 10 cookouts.

I was acting when I was playing baseball.

You know, I was once named Minor League Player of the Year… unfortunately, I had been in the majors for two years at the time.

He really showed me something. Struck out three times. Made an error that lost the game. Parents were throwing things at our car and swearing at us as we drove off. Gosh, I was proud.

The biggest thrill a ballplayer can have is when your son takes after you. That happened when my Bobby was in his championship Little League game.

Where would I be without baseball? Who am I without baseball?

If you have to explain satire to someone, you might as well give up.

I had to explain to him that it was a comedy.

Define yourself by what you love.

It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it

If you are not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man at all?.

The whole secret of the campaigns unleashed against Spain can be explained in two words: Masonry and Communism… we have to extirpate these two evils from our land.

Since dictating the Bible, and hiring a perfect race of ministers to explain it,

What is the purpose of writing? For me personally, it is really to explain the mystery of life, and the mystery of life includes, of course, the personal, the political, the forces that make us what we are while there’s another force from inside battling to make us something else.