“When you have five or six potential hall of famers on your team … that’s when you win penants and championships. The only thing you have to be concerned about is getting the ballplayers to bed on time.”

The reason I play so hard is that somewhere out there is some kid who has never seen me play before, and I don’t want to disappoint him.

I always thought there was at least one person in the stands who had never seen me play, and I didn’t want to let him down.

If I were sitting down with George Steinbrenner (to discuss a salary) and based on what Dave Winfield got for his statistics, I’d have to say, ‘George, you and I are about to become partners.’

It’s great to be young and be a Yankee!

If anyone wants to know why three kids in one family made it to the big leagues they just had to know how we helped each other and how much we practiced back then. We did it every minute we could.

Too many kids today are playing major league ball and don’t belong there.

I’m a ballplayer, not an actor.

There is always some kid who may be seeing me for the first time. I owe him my best.

The phrase ‘off with the crack of the bat’, while romantic, is really meaningless, since the outfielder should be in motion long before he hears the sound of the ball meeting the bat.

Motivation is something nobody else can give you. Others can help motivate you, but basically it must come from you and it must be a constant desire to do your very best at all times and under any circumstances.

All pitchers are born pitchers.

There’s always some youngster coming up- they’ll find somebody.

At my age, I’m just happy to be named the greatest living anything.

There’s nobody taking center from me until I give it up.

Now this is over thirty years later and the guy said he was that cab driver. He apologized and he was serious. I felt awful. He might have been spending his whole life thinking he had jinxed me, but I told him he hadn’t. My number was up.

We need a hit, so here I go.