Mickey Mantle
Somebody once asked me if I ever went up to the plate trying to hit a home run. I said, 'Sure, every time.'Collection: Home
It's unbelievable how much you don't know about the game you've been playing all your life.Collection: Life
A team is where a boy can prove his courage on his own. A gang is where a coward goes to hide.Collection: Courage
After I hit a home run I had a habit of running the bases with my head down. I figured the pitcher already felt bad enough without me showing him up rounding the bases.Collection: Home
If I knew I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself.
He who has the fastest golf cart never has a bad lie.
You don't realize how easy this game is until you get up in that broadcasting booth.
I don't care who you are, you hear those boos.
My views are just about the same as Casey's.
I'll play baseball for the Army or fight for it, whatever they want me to do.
Sometimes I think if I had the same body and the same natural ability and someone else's brain, who knows how good a player I might have been.
The only thing I can do is play baseball. I have to play ball. It's the only thing I know.
It was all I lived for, to play baseball.
To play 18 years in Yankee Stadium is the best thing that could ever happen to a ballplayer.
Well, baseball was my whole life. Nothing's ever been as fun as baseball.
I guess you could say I'm what this country is all about.
Hitting the ball was easy. Running around the bases was the tough part.
Today's Little Leaguers, and there are millions of them each year, pick up how to hit and throw and field just by watching games on TV. By the time they're out of high school, the good ones are almost ready to play professional ball.
I always loved the game, but when my legs weren't hurting it was a lot easier to love.
Roger Maris was as good a man and as good a ballplayer as there ever was.
I could never be a manager. All I have is natural ability.
Heroes are people who are all good with no bad in them. That's the way I always saw Joe DiMaggio. He was beyond question one of the greatest players of the century.
As far as I'm concerned, Aaron is the best ball player of my era. He is to baseball of the last fifteen years what Joe DiMaggio was before him. He's never received the credit he's due.
The biggest game I ever played in was probably Don Larsen's perfect game.
When I hit a home run I usually didn't care where it went. So long as it was a home run was all that mattered.
During my 18 years I came to bat almost 10,000 times. I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times. You figure a ballplayer will average about 500 at-bats a season. That means I played 7 years without ever hitting the ball.Collection: Sports
If I had played my career hitting singles like Pete (Rose), I'd wear a dress.Collection: Careers
I leaned on him for support when I got out of the cab, and he just crumpled to the ground. That's how we found out.Collection: Baseball
You never have to wait long, or look far, to be reminded of how thin the line is between being a hero or a goat.Collection: Hero
I thought I raised a ballplayer. You're nothing but a coward and a quitter.Collection: Baseball
I've often wondered how a man who knew he was going to die could stand here and say he was the luckiest man on the face of the earth, but now I guess I know how he felt.Collection: Baseball
Stay away from drugs and alcohol. Listen to your moms and dads. In this great country of ours you do whatever you set your mind to. Make us proud of you.Collection: Mom
Bravery is a complicated thing to describe. You can't say it's three feet long and two feet wide and that it weighs four hundred pounds or that it's colored bright blue or that it sounds like a piano or that it smells like roses. It's a quality, not a thing.Collection: Courage
I hated to bat against Drysdale. After he hit you he'd come around, look at the bruise on your arm and say, 'Do you want me to sign it?'Collection: Baseball
Don't do as I did. I'm living proof of how not to live.Collection: Proof
To get a better piece of chicken, you'd have to be a rooster.Collection: Yankees
If I hadn't met those two guys (Billy Martin and Whitey Ford) at the start of my career, I would have lasted another five years.Collection: Baseball
No man in the history of baseball had as much power as . No man.Collection: Baseball
My dad taught me to switch-hit. He and my grandfather, who was left-handed, pitched to me every day after school in the back yard. I batted lefty against my dad and righty against my granddad.Collection: Baseball
If you want to know who was better, me or Willie Mays, you have to look at our career stats. And Willie's bottom line was better.Collection: Baseball
Every time I see his name (Dean Chance) on a lineup card, I feel like throwing up.Collection: Names
In 1961 somebody could've hit a home run to win the game and the next day the headline was about the M&M boys not hitting a home run. But everyone was real good about it. Instead of getting mad they joked about it.Collection: Running
Casey didn't easily forgive a guy who got doubled up on a hit-and-run play. He didn't see any reason why the runner couldn't take a quick glance back toward the plate to make sure the ball was hit safely.Collection: Running
If the World Series was on the line and I could pick one pitcher to pitch the game, I'd choose Whitey Ford every time.Collection: Baseball
I don't know why Roger (Maris) isn't in the hall of fame. To me, he was as good as there ever was.Collection: Baseball
Hey man! Get away from me!Collection: Baseball
You don't have to talk to me about pensions. I won't be around long enough to collect one.Collection: Long
It gave me a second chance. I'd like everybody to have a second chance if they need it, so I'm trying to let people know how important it is to become an organ donor.Collection: Baseball
I never got to see the '27 Yankees. Everyone says that was the greatest team ever. But I think it would've been a great series if we'd have had the chance to play them.Collection: Baseball
It was the single greatest feat I ever saw.Collection: Baseball