Famous Sayings

Famous Sayings in baseball are usually said by a player or manager without really planning it. These spontaneous "Baseball-isms" have become a part of baseball lore.

Here are 72 of the best famous baseball sayings of all time.

1. "I'd walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play baseball!" Pete Rose

2. "If people don't want to come to the ballpark, how are you gonna stop them?" Yogi Berra

3. "There are only two places in this league. First place and no place." Tom Seaver

4. "Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer." Ted Williams

5. "The only thing my father and I have in common is that our similarities are different." Dale Berra

6. "All ballplayers should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill." Babe Ruth

7. "Any time you think you have the game conquered the game will turn around and punch you right in the nose." Mike Schmidt

8. "You gotta be a man to play baseball for a living, but you gotta have a lot of little boy in you." Roy Campanella

9. "Good pitching always stops good hitting and vice versa." Yogi Berra

10. "The hardest thing to do in baseball is to hit a round baseball with a round bat, squarely." Ted Williams

11. "Trying to sneak a fastball past Hank Aaron is like trying to sneak the sunrise past a rooster." Curt Simmons

12. "Speed slows down the game." Tim McCarver

13. "I'm not an athlete. I'm a professional baseball player." John Kruk

14. "If a tie is like kissing your sister, losing is like kissing your grandmother with her teeth out." George Brett

15. "If horses can't eat it, I don't want to play on it." Dick Allen

16. "Trying to hit him (Phil Niekro) was like trying to eat Jell-O with chopsticks." Bobby Murcer

17. "I'm glad I don't play anymore. I could never learn all those hand-shakes." Phil Rizzuto

18. "The most important things in life are good friends and a strong bull pen." Bob Lemon

19. "It's a beautiful day for a night game." Frankie Frisch

20. "We was going to get you a birthday cake, but we figured you'd drop it." Casey Stengel to Marv Throneberry

21. "Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it don't matter". Satchel Paige

22. "A team is where a boy can prove his courage on his own. A gang is where a coward goes to hide." Mickey Mantle

23. "I'd rather be lucky than good." Lefty Grove

24. "Managing is getting paid for home runs someone else hits." Casey Stengel

25. "A baseball game is simply a nervous breakdown divided into nine innings." Earl Wilson

26. "When they start the game, they don't yell, 'Work ball', they say, "Play ball." Willie Stargell

27. "What does a mama bear on the pill have in common with the World Series? No Cubs." Harry Caray

28. "With the money I'm making, I should be playing two positions." Pete Rose

29. "Andre Dawson has a bruised knee and is listed as day-to-day. Aren't we all?" Vin Scully

30. "The doctors x-rayed my head and found nothing." Dizzy Dean

31. "I managed a team that was so bad we considered a 2-0 count on the batter a rally." Rich Donnelly

32. "I could never play in New York. The first time I came into a game there, I got into the bullpen car and they told me to lock the doors." Mike Flanagan

33. "Three more saves and he ties John the Baptist." Hank Greenwald about Bruce Sutter

34. "Hitting the ball was easy. Running around the bases was the tough part." Mickey Mantle

35. "If he raced his pregnant wife he'd finish third." Tommy Lasorda about Mike Sciosia

36. "They (Expos fans) discovered 'boo' is pronounced the same in French as it is in English." Harry Caray

37. "I never questioned the integrity of an umpire. Their eyesight, yes." Leo Durocher

38. "I don't want to embarrass any other catcher by comparing him to Johnny Bench." Sparky Anderson

39. "We need just two players to be a contender. Babe Ruth and Sandy Koufax." Whitey Herzog

40. "All last year we tried to teach him (Fernando Valenzuela) English, and the only word he learned was million." Tommy Lasorda

41. "Play him (Dick Allen), fine him, and play him again.." Gene Mauch

42. "One percent of ballplayers are leaders of men. The other 99 percent are followers of women." John McGraw

43. "Having Willie Stargell on your ball club is like having a diamond ring on your finger." Chuck Tanner

44. "The key to winning baseball games is pitching, fundamentals, and three run homers." Earl Weaver

45. "It ain't braggin' if you can back it up." Dizzy Dean

46. "Army life was rough. Would you believe it, they actually wanted me to pitch three times a week." Whitey Ford

47. "A great catch is like watching girls go by. The last one you see is always the prettiest." Bob Gibson

48. "I'll play first, third, left. I'll play anywhere except Philadelphia." Dick Allen

49. "They throw the ball, I hit it. They hit the ball, I catch it." Willie Mays

50. "They're (hitting slumps) like sleeping in a soft bed. Easy to get into and hard to get out of." Johnny Bench

51. "Wait until Tommy Lasorda meets the Lord and finds out He's wearing pinstripes". Gaylord Perry

52. "I always wanted to play baseball and join the circus. Now I have both." Craig Nettles on playing with the Yankees.

53. "A hot dog at the ballpark is better than a steak at the Ritz." Humphrey Bogart

54. "I want to be remembered as a ball player that gave all he had to give." Roberto Clemente

55. The difference between the old ballplayer and the new ballplayer is his jersey. The old ballplayer cared about the name on the front. The new ballplayer cares about the name on the back." Steve Garvey

56. "I'm working on a new pitch. It's called a strike." Jim Kern

57. "I blew it the way I saw it." Umpire Ralph DeLeonardis

58. "One of the hardest things in life to accept is a called third strike." Robert Frost

59. "Fans don't boo nobodies." Reggie Jackson

60. "He (Willie Stargell) has enough power to hit the ball out of any park, including Yellowstone." Sparky Andersen

61. "You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out it was the other way around. Jim Bouton

62. "I don't want to play golf. When I hit a baseball, I want someone else to chase it." Rogers Hornsby

63. "When you're in a slump, it's almost as if you look out at the field and it's one big glove." Vance Law

64. "The designated hitter rule is like letting someone else take Wilt Chamberlain's free throws." Rick Wise

65. "A knuckle ball doesn't bother me at all. I just go up, take my three swings and sit down." Dick Allen

66. "You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all." Earl Weaver

67. "At 500 at-bats a year that means that for two years out of the fourteen I played, I never even touched the ball." Norm Cash.

68. "The pitcher has to find out if the hitter is timid. And if the hitter is timid, he has to remind the hitter he's timid." Don Drysdale.

69. "It ain't like football. You can't make up no trick plays." Yogi Berra

70. "What does a mama bear on the pill have in common with the World Series? No Cubs." Harry Caray

71. "The best way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until the ball stops rolling and then pick it up." Bob Uecker

72. "When Steve Carlton and I die, we are going to be buried in the same cemetery, 60-feet 6-inches apart." Tim McCarver

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