"The difference between men and women is that, if given the choice between saving the life of an infant or catching a fly ball, a woman will automatically choose to save the infant, without even considering if there's a man on base."

Dave Barry
"Defense is baseball's visible poetry and its invisible virtue."

Thomas Boswell, baseball writer, 1984

"You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time."

Jim Bouton, Major League pitcher, 1970

"Baseball is different from any other sport, very different. For instance, in most sports you score points or goals; in baseball you score runs. In most sports the ball, or object, is put in play by the offensive team; in baseball the defensive team puts the ball in play, and only the defense is allowed to touch the ball. In fact, in baseball if an offensive player touches the ball intentionally, he's out; sometimes unintentionally, he's out.

Also: in football,basketball, soccer, volleyball, and all sports played with a ball, you score with the ball and in baseball the ball prevents you from scoring.

In most sports the team is run by a coach; in baseball the team is run by a manager. And only in baseball does the manager or coach wear the same clothing the players do. If you'd ever seen John Madden in his Oakland Raiders uniform,you'd know the reason for this custom.

Now, I've mentioned football. Baseball & football are the two most popular spectator sports in this country. And as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something about ourselves and our values.

I enjoy comparing baseball and football:

Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.
Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. The baseball park!
Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.

Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything's dying.

In football you wear a helmet.
In baseball you wear a cap.

Football is concerned with downs - what down is it?
Baseball is concerned with ups - who's up?

In football you receive a penalty.
In baseball you make an error.

In football the specialist comes in to kick.
In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.

Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness.
Baseball has the sacrifice.

Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog...
In baseball, if it rains, we don't go out to play.

Baseball has the seventh inning stretch.
Football has the two minute warning.

Baseball has no time limit: we don't know when it's gonna end - might have extra innings.
Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we've got to go to sudden death.

In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a picnic feeling; emotions may run high or low, but there's not too much unpleasantness.
In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you're capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.

And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:

In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.

In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! - I hope I'll be safe at home!"

George Carlin
"Baseball breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring when everything else begins again and it blossoms in summer, filling the afternoons and evenings and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it. Rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops."

A. Bartlett Giamatti

"When I was seven years old, my father took me to Fenway Park for the first time, and as I grew up I knew that as a building it was on the level with Mount Olympus, the Pyramid at Giza, the nation's Capitol, the Czar's Winter Palace and the Louvre. Except, of course, that it was better than all those inconsequential places."

A. Bartlett Giamatti
"The secret of my success was clean living and a fast moving outfield."

 Vernon "Lefty" Gomez, New York Yankees, Pitcher

"I was never nervous when I had the ball, but when I let go I was scared to death."

 Vernon "Lefty" Gomez

"When Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon, he and all the space scientists were puzzled by an unidentifiable white object. I knew immediately what it was. That was a home run ball hit off me in 1937 by Jimmie Foxx."

Vernon "Lefty" Gomez
"I once stood outside Fenway Park in Boston, a place where the ghosts never go away, and watched a vigorous man of middle years helping, with infinite care, a frail and elderly gentleman through the milling crowds to the entry gate. Through the tears that came unexpectadly to my eyes, I saw the old man strong and important forty years before, holding the hand of a confused and excited five-year-old, showing him the way. Baseball's best moments don't always happen on the field."

Alison Gordon, sportswriter, 1984

"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, St. Louis Cardinals, Second Base, Manager

"I don't want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it."

Rogers Hornsby

"Baseball has done more to move America in the right direction than all of the professional patriots with all their cheap words."

Monford "Monte" Irvin, Newark Eagles
"Managing is like holding a dove in your hand. Squeeze too hard and you kill it; not hard enough and it flies away."

Tommy Lasorda

"Do you realize that even as we sit here, we are hurtling through space at a tremendous rate of speed? Think about it. Our world is just a hanging curveball."

Bill "Spaceman" Lee, Boston Red Sox, Pitcher

"Do they leave it there during games?"

Bill "Spaceman" Lee, upon first seeing the Green Monster in Fenway Park

"The lefthander's first good look at the leftfield wall, the Green Monster in Fenway, is an automatic reason for massive depression. And that's when it's viewed from the dugout."

Bill "Spaceman" Lee

"You should enter the ballpark the way you enter a church."

Bill "Spaceman" Lee

"(There should be) holy water inside the turnstiles and everyone will have to genuflect before going into the stadium. (And) no mascots. No mascot, no designated hitter, no music between innings. Hot dogs, peanuts, and go get 'em."

Bill "Spaceman" Lee

"When a pitcher's throwing a spitball, don't worry and don't complain, just hit the dry side like I do."

Stan Musial

"He could have hit .300 with a fountain pen."

Joe Garagiola on Musial

"How good was Stan Musial? He was good enough to take your breath away."

Broadcaster Vin Scully

"I throw him four wide ones then try to pick him off first base."

Preacher Roe on pitching to Musial

"I've had pretty good success with Stan (Musial) by throwing him my best pitch and backing up third."

Carl Erskine on pitching to Musial

"Once (Stan) Musial timed your fastball, your infielders were in jeopardy."

Warren Spahn on pitching to Musial

Game Called. Across the field of play
the dusk has come, the hour is late.
The fight is done and lost or won,
the player files out through the gate.
The tumult dies, the cheer is hushed,
the stands are bare, the park is still.
But through the night there shines the light,
home beyond the silent hill.

Game Called. Where in the golden light
the bugle rolled the reveille.
The shadows creep where night falls deep,
and taps has called the end of play.
The game is done, the score is in,
the final cheer and jeer have passed.
But in the night, beyond the fight,
the player finds his rest at last.

Game Called. Upon the field of life
the darkness gathers far and wide,
the dream is done, the score is spun
that stands forever in the guide.
Nor victory, nor yet defeat
is chalked against the players name.
But down the roll, the final scroll,
shows only how he played the game.

Grantland Rice, from The Fireside Book of Baseball, 1956 
"Statistics are used by baseball fans in much the same way that a drunk leans against a 
street lamp; it's there more for support than enlightenment."
Vin Scully, Broadcaster
"You know, I signed with the Milwaukee Braves for $3,000. That bothered my dad at the time, because he didn't have that kind of dough to pay out. But eventually he scraped it up."

Bob Uecker, Broadcaster and former player, 1984

"Baseball hasn't forgotten me. I go to a lot of Old Timers games and I haven't lost a thing. I sit in the bullpen and let people throw things at me. Just like old times."

Bob Uecker

"I set records that will never be equaled. In fact, I hope 90% of them don't even get printed."

Bob Uecker

"The way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and then pick it up."

Bob Uecker


"Kids are always chasing rainbows, but baseball is a world where you can catch them."

Johnny Vander Meer, Pitcher, Cinncinnati Reds (1914-1997)






"I have discovered, in twenty years of moving around a ball park, that the knowledge of the game is usually in inverse proportion to the price of the seats."

Bill Veeck

"Baseball's unique possession, the real source of our strength, is the fan's memory of the times his daddy took him to the game to see the great players of his youth. Whether he remembers it or not, the excitement of those hours, the step they represented in his own growth, and the part those afternoons - even one afternoon - played in his relationship with his father are bound up in his feeling toward the local ballclub and toward the game."

Bill Veeck

"That's the true harbinger of spring, not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of a bat on the ball."

Bill Veeck

"Correct thinkers think that "baseball trivia" is an oxymoron: nothing about baseball is trivial."

George F. Will

"Ronald Reagan has held the two most demeaning jobs in the country - President of the United States and radio broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs."

George Will

"Chicago Cubs fans are ninety percent scar tissue."

George Will
"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

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