50 Funny Baseball Quotes

A diamond collection of wisdom and one-liners

Betsy Towner

AARP Bulletin

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Published March 01, 2011

Three people standing on a baseball field with the mountains in the background

1. It ain't nothin' till I call it. — Bill Klem, legendary Major League Baseball umpire

2. There have been only two authentic geniuses in the world, Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare. — Tallulah Bankhead

3. I never threw an illegal pitch. The trouble is, once in a while I toss one that ain't never been seen by this generation. — Satchel Paige

4. Ninety percent of this game is half mental. — Yogi Berra

5. If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there is a man on base. — Dave Barry

6. Who is this Baby Ruth? And what does she do? — George Bernard Shaw

7. The way to make coaches think you're in shape in the spring is to get a tan. — Whitey Ford

8. Running a ball club is like raising kids who fall out of trees. — Tom Trebelhorn

9. I watch a lot of baseball on radio. — Gerald Ford

10. I didn't mean to hit the umpire with the dirt, but I did mean to hit that bastard in the stands. — Babe Ruth

11. If you get three strikes, even the best lawyer in the world can't get you off. — Bill Veeck

12. Bob Gibson is the luckiest pitcher I ever saw. He always pitches when the other team doesn't score any runs. — Tim McCarver

13. Trying to sneak a pitch past Hank Aaron is like trying to sneak the sunrise past a rooster. — Joe Adcock

14. The other teams could make trouble for us if they win. — Yogi Berra

15. Beethoven can't really be great because his picture isn't on a bubble gum card. — Charles Schulz

16. I think I throw the ball as hard as anyone. The ball just doesn't get there as fast. — Eddie Bane

17. Third ain't so bad if nothin' is hit to you. — Yogi Berra

18. There's no crying in baseball! — Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own

19. I never took the game home with me. I always left it in some bar. — Bob Lemon

20. Well, it took me 17 years to get 3,000 hits in baseball, and I did it in one afternoon on the golf course. — Hank Aaron

21. After Jackie Robinson, the most important black in baseball history is Reggie Jackson. — Reggie Jackson

22. We know we're better than this, but we can't prove it. — Tony Gwynn

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

24. If a horse won't eat it, I don't want to play on it. — Dick Allen on artificial turf

“You don't realize how easy this game is until you get up in that broadcasting booth.”

— Mickey Mantle

26. Alan Sutton Sothoron pitched his initials off today. — Anonymous, St. Louis newspaper

27. All I remember about my wedding day in 1967 is that the Cubs lost a doubleheader. — George F. Will

28. Never root for a team whose uniforms have elastic stretch waistbands. — Susan Sarandon

29. There ain't much to being a ballplayer, if you're a ballplayer. — Honus Wagner

30. Us ballplayers do things backward. First we play, then we retire and go to work. — Charlie Gehringer

31. The funny thing about these uniforms is that you hang them in the closet and they get smaller and smaller. — Curt Flood

32. Sure I played, did you think I was born age 70 sitting in a dugout trying to manage guys like you? — Casey Stengel, to Mickey Mantle

33. When you start the game, they don't say "Work ball!" They say "Play ball!" — Willie Stargell

34. There are two theories on hitting the knuckleball. Unfortunately, neither one of them works. — Charlie Lau

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

36. Think! How the hell are you gonna think and hit at the same time? — Yogi Berra

37. The majority of American males put themselves to sleep by striking out the batting order of the New York Yankees. — James Thurber

38. A hot dog at the game beats roast beef at the Ritz. — Humphrey Bogart

39. He's the strangest hitter in baseball. Figure him out one way and he'll kill you another. — Sandy Koufax on Roberto Clemente

40. As a nation we are dedicated to keeping physically fit — and parking as close to the stadium as possible. — Bill Vaughan

41. Slump? I ain't in no slump. I just ain't hitting. — Yogi Berra

42. A man once told me to walk with the Lord. I'd rather walk with the bases loaded. — Ken Singleton

43. I'd be willing to bet you, if I was a betting man, that I have never bet on baseball. — Pete Rose

44. Little League baseball is a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets. — Yogi Berra

45. Lasorda's standard reply when some new kid would ask directions to the whirlpool was to tell him to stick his foot in the toilet and flush it. — Steve Garvey

46. If you don't succeed at first, try pitching. — Jack Harshman

47. The Hall of Fame is for baseball people. Heaven is for good people. — Jim Dwyer

48. So I'm ugly. So what? I never saw anyone hit with his face. — Yogi Berra

49. He looks like a greyhound, but he runs like a bus. — George Brett on teammate Jamie Quirk

50. The baseball mania has run its course. It has no future as a professional endeavor. — Cincinnati Gazette editorial, 1879

Source: Baseball’s Greatest Quotations: An Illustrated Treasury of Baseball Quotations and Historical Lore, by Paul Dickson, HarperCollins, 2008.

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Betsy Towner is a freelance writer.

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