Pete's Baseball Quotes

The Not So Greats

Bob Eucker, on a little league game in which his son, Bobby Jr., played:
He struck out three times and lost the game for the team when a ball went through his legs at third base. Parents were throwing things at our car and swearing at us as we left the parking lot. Gosh, I was proud. A chip off the old block.

Jim Kern, recalling being removed by a manager for a reliever:
I told him I wasn't tired. He told me, "No, but our outfielders sure are.

Reserve Catcher John Marzano, asked the best dig Ken Griffey Jr. ever gave him:
I was suspended two days for fighting Paul O'Neill. Junior said that if they really wanted to punish us, they would have made me play two games.

Bob Cooke:
Rex Barney would be the league's best pitcher if the plate were high and outside.

Casey Stengel:
I broke in with four hits and the writers promptly decided they had seen the new Ty Cobb. It took me only a few days to correct that impression.

Casey Stengel:
I had many years that I was not so successful as a ballplayer, as it is a game of skill.

Casey Stengel:
I was such a dangerous hitter I even got intentional walks \ during batting practice.

Casey Stengel:
You couldn't play on the Amazin' Mets without having held some kind of record, like one fella held the world's international all-time record for a catcher getting hit on the ankles.

Casey Stengel, to one of his pitchers at the Polo Grounds:
At the end of this season they're gonna tear this place down. The way you're pitchin', that right-field section will be gone already.

Casey Stengel, to Marvelous Marv Throneberry on his birthday:
We was going to get you a birthday cake, but we figured you'd drop it.

Casey Stengel:
I got a kid, Greg Goosen, he's nineteen years old and in ten years he's got a chance to be twenty-nine.

Casey Stengel:
Look at him. He doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he doesn't chew, he doesn't stay out late, and he still can't hit .250.

Casey Stengel:
He's a remarkable catcher, that Canzoneri. He's the only defensive catcher in baseball who can't catch.

Casey Stengel, on his three Mets catchers:
I got one that can throw but can't catch, and one that can catch but can't throw, and one who can hit but can't do either.

Casey Stengel, after Ron Swoboda tore up the dugout:
If everybody on this team commenced breaking up the furniture every time we did bad, there'd be no place to sit.

Steve Rosenbloom, Chicago Tribune, describing White Sox returning from Toronto:
As the Sox pass through the U.S. customs, the agent will ask if you have anything valuable to declare and the middle relievers can walk right through.

John Lowenstein:
Sure, I screwed up that sacrifice bunt, but look at it this way. I'm a better bunter than a billion Chinese. Those poor suckers can't bunt at all.

Jim Leyland, Pirates manager:
I knew we were in for a long season when we lined up for the national anthem on openning day and one of my players said, "Every time I hear that song I have a bad game."

Gene Green, to pitcher Jim Brosnan:
I don't mind catching your fastball at all. Naturally, I'd want to have a glove on in case you might be having an especially good day.

Tim McCarver:
I remember one time going out to the mound to talk with Bob Gibson. He told me to get back behind the batter, that the only thing I knew about pitching was that it was hard to hit.

Unknown:
Don Stanhouse holds the ball so long he appears to be hoping the batter will fall victim to some crippling disease.

Fresco Thompson, on Babe Herman:
He wore a glove for one reason: it was a league custom. The glove would last him a minimum of six years because it rarely made contact with the ball.

Danny Ozark, on Jay Johnstone:
What makes him unusual is that he thinks he's normal and everyone else is nuts.

Harry Kalas, on Gary Maddox:
He's turned his life around. He used to be depressed and miserable. Now he's miserable and depressed.

Clint Hurdle, on misplaying a fly ball:
I was playing it like Willie Wilson, but I forgot that I'm in Clint Hurdle's body.

Clint Hurdle:
If I had done everything I was supposed to, I'd be leading the league in homers, have the highest batting average, have given $100,000 to the Cancer Fund and be married to Marie Osmond.

Alan Ashby, on what he hit for a homerun:
It was a low fastball. It just happened to be right where I was swinging.

John Lardner:
Babe Hermann did not triple into a triple-play, but he did double into a double-play, which is the next best thing. (ho 35)

Ted Lyons, on Moe Berg:
He could speak in eight languages, but he couldn't hit in any of them.

Red Smith, to Moe Berg:
I understand, Moe, that you are in counterintelligence, which, I assume, means you are against intelligence. (mb)

Joe Garagiola, on Rick Burleson:
He's even tempered. He comes to the ballpark mad and stays that way.

Ray Culp, pitcher, after a hit ricocheted off his head and was caught by the centerfielder for an out:
Don't tell me I don't know where to play the hitters. (ws)

Jack Lang, after Marvelous Marv Throneberry was called out for missing first:
How could he be expected to remember where the bases were? He gets on so infrequently.

Jimmy Breslin, on Marv Throneberry:
Marvelous Marv was holding down first base. This is like saying Willie Sutton works at your bank.

Roger Angell, on Choo Choo Coleman:
He is quick on the bases, but this is an attribute that is about as essential for catchers as neat handwriting.

Frank Sullivan, Minnesota Twins pitcher:
I'm in the twilight of a mediocre career.

Buzzie Bavasi, on Don Zimmer, a play-me-or-trade-me player:
We played him and now we can't trade him.

Steve McCatty, on Bruce Bochte's 450 ft. homerun:
Some of our guys would have to pick up the ball and hit it three times to get it that far.

Warren Brown, on the war-decimated lineups in the 1945 Tigers-Cubs series:
I don't think either team is capable of winning.

Ryan Franklin, asked if the 2-year contract he signed in the 2003-2004 offseason was his first multiple-year contract:
No, I had one with my cell phone company, too.

Pete's Baseball Quotes