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“If you are going to get beat, get beat with your best pitch.”
three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
it: “A few feet made the difference between a hero and a bum.”
The two men, Rickey and Yogi, connected briefly in 1985. Henderson signed with the Yankees and Berra was the manager before getting fired after only 16 games. There was enough time for this: Berra was asked by reporters how he would handle Henderson’s baserunning. “He can run anytime he wants,” Berra said. “I’m giving him the red light.”
“Any time you think you have the game conquered,” he said, “the game will turn right around and punch you in the nose.”
In 1912, he became the first player to hit 50 doubles and steal 50 bases in a season (only Craig Biggio has done it since)
I close in saying I might have had a bad break. But I have an awful lot to live for. Thank you.”
There are two options in life. You win. You fail.
“There ain’t much to being a ballplayer if you’re a ballplayer.”
“How many ballplayers grow up afraid of losing their father’s love every time they come to the plate?”
“Nobody,” Paige said, “likes the ball low and away.”
Who got the one hit in Satchel Paige’s last big-league game? It was Carl Yastrzemski, who celebrated after the game by hugging Paige tight.
“Home plate don’t move,” he said.
Most Combined Doubles and Triples Stan Musial, 902 Pete Rose, 881 George Brett, 802 Paul Waner, 796 Craig Biggio, 723
He had 1,815 in St. Louis and 1,815 hits out of St. Louis.
Musial won three MVP awards and finished second four other times. He won seven batting titles and led the league in runs (five times), hits (six times), doubles (eight times), triples (five times), RBIs (twice), total bases (six times), and OPS (seven times).
“Stan was a better player than me,” Mickey Mantle said, “because he was a better man than me.”
baseball. “You can’t afford to lose your head,” she told him, “but you can afford to follow your heart.”
He retired with a .367 batting average (since adjusted to .366 after a couple of hits were found to be phantoms) and it is not just a record that will never be touched, it is an absurdity. Nobody has hit .367 in a season for 15 years.
From 1909 to 1919, Cobb never hit as low as .367 in a season.
“The reason it was hard to choose that one,” host Garry Moore said after the panelists failed to guess the secret, “was because he also held the following records: the highest average in one American League season (.419 in 1911); most bases stolen in one season (96 in 1915); most total stolen bases (897); most seasons played in majors (24); most games played (3,034); most times at bat (11,440); most hits (4,191—with two hits later taken away); scored most runs (2,245); most years batting champion; most years hit over .300 (23, though that includes some partial seasons); most years hit over
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“A life is not important,” he said, “except in the impact it has on other lives.”
“They were all against me,” Cobb said. “But I beat the bastards and left them in a ditch.”
When he returned, he went to war with the whole world.
“History teaches us that three systems of controlling the people have been tried: slavery, serfdom, and education, and the first two have been dismal failures.”
He was a cookie full of arsenic,
“I don’t like them either so that makes it all even.”
keep an updated list on my computer of the 50 I believe threw the hardest fastballs of them all. You will recognize most of the names: Rube Waddell, Smoky Joe Wood, Smokey Joe Williams, Lefty Grove, Van Lingle Mungo, Ryne Duren, Sandy Koufax, Herb Score, Sudden Sam McDowell, Goose Gossage, Roger Clemens, Rob Dibble, Randy Johnson, Billy Wagner, Justin Verlander, Joel Zumaya, Noah Syndergaard, Jordan Hicks, and so on.
“I never threw an illegal pitch,” Paige once said. “The trouble is, once in a while I would toss one that ain’t never been seen by this generation.”
Evans himself told another story, one about a batter who faced Johnson, saw (or didn’t see) two fastballs go by for strikes, and headed back to the dugout. “You’ve got another strike coming,” Evans shouted to the player. “I don’t want it,” the hitter said. “I’ve seen enough.”
“From the time I held a ball, it settled in the palm of my right hand as though it belonged there,”
