“Hating the Yankees isn’t part of my act. It is one of those exquisite times when life and art are in perfect conjunction.”

When you have somebody that’s smart and you’re not so smart, to me that’s modern day slavery because you’re being dictated to.

If there is any justice in this world, to be a White Sox fan frees a man from any other form of penance.

I think we have the worst name in rock, I really do. It’s the worst name in the world

There are only two seasons – winter and Baseball.

Suffering is overrated. It doesn’t teach you anything.

The true harbinger of spring is not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of the bat on the ball.

Baseball is almost the only orderly thing in a very unorderly world. If you get three strikes, even the best lawyer in the world can’t get you off.

It never ceases to amaze me how many of baseball’s wounds are self-inflicted.

I don’t mind the high price of stardom. I just don’t like the high price of mediocrity.

Though it is a team game by definition, it is actually a series of loosely connected individual efforts.

The most beautiful thing in the world is a ballpark filled with people.

People identify with the swashbuckling individuals, not polite little men who field their position well. Sir Galahad had a big following – but I’ll bet Lancelot had more.

Deplore it if you will, but Grover Cleveland Alexander drunk was a better pitcher than Grover Cleveland Alexander sober.

I don’t break the rules. I merely test their elasticity.

I try not to break the rules, but merely to test their elasticity.

This is a game to be savored, not gulped. There’s time to discuss everything between pitches or between innings.

Don’t let the fear of striking out hold you back.

The only real game, I think, in the world is baseball.

If it wasn’t for baseball, I’d be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery.

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.

I swing big, with everything I’ve got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can.

Gee, its lonesome in the outfield. It’s hard to keep awake with nothing to do.

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 ballplayers should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill.