Baseball is a game of inches.
BRANCH RICKEYBaseball is a game of inches.
BRANCH RICKEYA full mind is an empty bat.
BRANCH RICKEYDon’t worry about your individual numbers. Worry about the team. If the team is successful, each of you will be successful, too.
BRANCH RICKEYWe win if the world is convinced of two things, that you are a fine gentleman, and a great baseball player.
BRANCH RICKEYGood luck is what is left over after intelligence and effort have combined at their best. Luck is the residue of design.
BRANCH RICKEYI find fault with my children because I like them and I want them to go places – uprightness and strength and courage and civil respect and anything that affects the probabilities of failure on the part of those that are closest to me, that concerns me – I find fault.
BRANCH RICKEYFill in any figure you want for that boy (Mickey Mantle). Whatever the figure, it’s a deal.
BRANCH RICKEYThe world’s not so simple anymore, I guess it never was. We ignored it, now we can’t.
BRANCH RICKEYHe (Leo Durocher) had the ability of taking a bad situation and making it immediately worse.
BRANCH RICKEYThe man with the ball is responsible for what happens to the ball.
BRANCH RICKEYThe only thing Abner Doubleday ever started was the Civil War.
BRANCH RICKEYIt (a baseball box score) doesn’t tell how big you are, what church you attend, what color you are, or how your father voted in the last election. It just tells what kind of baseball player you were on that particular day.
BRANCH RICKEYLeisure is the handmaiden of the devil.
BRANCH RICKEYFirst of all, a man, whether seeking achievement on the athletic field or in business, must want to win. He must feel that the thing he is doing is worthwhile; so worthwhile that he is willing to pay the price of success to attain distinction.
BRANCH RICKEYBaseball people are generally allergic to new ideas; it took years to persuade them to put numbers on uniforms, and it is the hardest thing in the world to get Major League Baseball to change anything—even spikes on a new pair of shoes—but they will eventually…they are bound to.
BRANCH RICKEYA great ballplayer is a player who will take a chance.
BRANCH RICKEY