"All I ever wanted to be president of was the American League." Source: Yale University Archives

"Call it what you will, the strike is utter foolishness. It is an act of defiance against the American people, and the only summer God made for 1981, and I appeal for it to cease. I do so as a citizen." Source: Baseball America (Tracy Ringolsby, October 10, 1989)

It 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 the 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." Source: The Green Fields of the Mind (Yale Alumni Magazine, November 1977)

"On matters of race, on matters of decency, baseball should lead the way." Source: Hartford Courant (Claire Smith, April 15, 1984)

"People will say I'm an idealist. I hope so." Source: Pete Rose Banishment Speech

"The banishment for life of Pete Rose from baseball is a sad end of a sorry episode. One of the game's greatest players has engaged in a variety of acts which have stained the game, and he must now live with the consequences of those acts. There is absolutely no deal for reinstatement." Source: Televised Speech (August 24, 1989)

"The people of America care about baseball, not about your squalid little squabbles. Reassume your dignity and remember that you (players during the 1981 strike) are the temporary custodians of an enduring public trust." Source: Baseball American (Tracy Ringolsby, October 10, 1989)

The largest thing I've learned is the enormous grip that this game has on people, the extent to which it really is very important. It goes way down deep. It really does bind together. It's a cliche and sounds sentimental, but I have now seen it from the inside." Source: Tom Boswell Syndicated Column (September 2, 1989)

"There are a lot of people who know me who can't understand for the life of them why I would got to work on something as unserious as baseball. If they only knew." Source: Baseball's Greatest Quotations (Paul Dickson, 1997)

"There's nothing bad that accrues from baseball." Source: Tom Boswell Syndicated Column (September 2, 1989)

"As all of us are aware, and no one more than I, Bart had a singular skill as a public speaker. He spoke well because he thought so well. But I point out to you that the most often quoted remark of Bart's brief tenure as Commissioner is a very simple declarative sentence. That sentence is the cornerstone on which I will build my own administration. Bart said very simply, 'No one is bigger than the game.' I repeat today what Bart said in August, no one - no player, no executive, no owner, no Commissioner, no umpire is bigger than the game." - Commissioner Fay Vincent at the Winter Meetings (December 4, 1989)

For being book smart, I thought he (A. Bartlett Giamatti) had a lot of street smarts, which is tough to find sometimes." - Whitey Herzog in the Washington Post (September 3, 1989)

"One thing you can be sure of, you'll never hear anyone say I knew someone exactly like Bart Giamatti." - Joe Garagiola at Carnegie Hall (1989)

This is the last pure place where Americans dream. This is the last great arena, the last green arena, where everybody can learn lessons of life." - Marcus Giamatti in the Houston Post (April 9, 1990, Bart's Son Partially Quoting his Father)