For months I have waited to write this very post. I’ve debated a hundred different approaches that I could take. I thought about talking how amazing it is to walk out onto the field for the first time each year and feel the grass beneath your cleats. I could talk about the soreness you feel in your arm as you throw the ball for the first time after a long winter and want to rejoice with the pain. I could describe the amazing symphony that is created with the combination of wood bats hitting balls, catchers gloves popping with every pitch, or joyful sounds of a crowed rising to its feet to cheer a home run.
I thought of these things and many more ideas but I kept coming back to one single idea. The idea I finally decided upon was to share some of my favorite baseball quotes of all time because nothing says baseball quite like the legends of the game and some great movie quotes talking about the game of baseball.
People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring. – Rogers Hornsby
Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical. – Yogi Berra
Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday’s success or put its failures behind and start over again. That’s the way life is, with a new game every day, and that’s the way baseball is. – Bob Feller
Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he’s losing; nobody wants you to quit when you’re ahead. – Jackie Robinson
Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world. – Babe Ruth
No baseball pitcher would be worth a darn without a catcher who could handle the hot fastball. – Casey Stengel
I think about baseball when I wake up in the morning. I think about it all day and I dream about it at night. The only time I don’t think about it is when I’m playing it. – Carl Yastrzemski
One of the beautiful things about baseball is that every once in a while you come into a situation where you want to, and where you have to, reach down and prove something. – Nolan Ryan
In baseball, you can’t kill the clock. You’ve got to give the other man his chance. That’s why this is the greatest game. – Earl Weaver
Well, baseball was my whole life. Nothing’s ever been as fun as baseball. – Mickey Mantle
Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. – Lou Gehrig
The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and what could be again. – James Earl Jones in Field of Dreams (1989)
Are you crying? Are you crying? ARE YOU CRYING? There’s no crying! THERE’S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL! – Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) in A League Of Their Own
Relax, all right? Don’t try to strike everybody out. Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they’re fascist. Throw some ground balls – it’s more democratic. – Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) Bull Durham
Do you have favorite baseball quotes of your own? Leave a comment or go to the 9 Inning Facebook Page and leave one there.
Great post on baseball quotes. One of my favorites is, “People ask me what I do in the winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” -Roger Hornsby