“On matters of race, on matters of decency, baseball should lead the way.”

Baseball has the largest library of law and love and custom and ritual, and therefore, in a nation that fundamentally believes it is a nation under law, well, baseball is America’s most privileged version of the level field.

The professionals must set a good example.

On a good day, I view the job [of president] as directing an orchestra. On the dark days, it is more like that of a clutch — engaging the engine to effect forward motion, while taking greater friction.

Major sports are major parts of society. It’s not anomalous to have people who love sports come from other parts of that society.

Some of my academic friends think Ive fallen from a very special grace.

Talking to Yogi Berra about baseball is like talking to Homer about the Gods.

It is not enough to offer a smorgasbord of courses. We must insure that students are not just eating at one end of the table.

There are many who lust for the simple answers of doctrine or decree. They are on the left and right. They are not confined to a single part of the society. They are terrorists of the mind.

I’m the world’s expert on sterotypes held by academics about athletes and held by athletes about academics. To me, both of them are caricatures.

If a family is an expression of continuity through biology, a city is an expression of continuity through will amd imagination? through mental choices making artifice, not through physical reproduction.

A tremendous social responsibility comes with being a successful public performer.

People will say I’m an idealist. I hope so.

The university is our culture’s assertion that what is made by the mind has value and can convey values.

[Baseball] breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart.

You count on it, you rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then, just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.

Winning has a joy and discrete purity to it that cannot be replaced by anything else.

Knowin’ all about baseball is just about as profitable as bein’ a good whittler.

I wanted to be a professional baseball player.

The formula for success is simple: practice and concentration then more practice and more concentration.

Baseball is just my job.

I grew up playing everything from rugby, football, baseball, volleyball, bike races and boxing. I tried martial arts, loved to ride horses and I’m the youngest of three brothers, so it was a fiercely competitive family.

It’s a relief now to be able to stand next to my godfather and finally feel like I’ve accomplished something in the game of baseball.

I don’t know what you guys say, but at home, life is way different from baseball.

I feel my time in baseball has come and gone. I feel like I had a great career. I had a lot of fun and have a lot of great memories. At one point in time, I’ll be able to tell it all. Right now that’s in the past. I see things differently. I more want to help.