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

"All I can tell them is pick a good one and sock it. I get back to the dugout and they ask me what it was I hit and I tell them I don't know except it looked good." Source: The American Treasury (Clifton Fadiman)

"As soon as I got out there I felt a strange relationship with the pitcher's mound. It was as if I'd been born out there. Pitching just felt like the most natural thing in the world. Striking out batters was easy." Source: Giants of Baseball (Bill Gutman)

"Aw, everybody knows that game, the day I hit the homer off ole Charlie Root there in Wrigley Field, the day October first, the third game of that thirty-two World Series. But right now I want to settle all arguments. I didn't exactly point to any spot, like the flagpole. Anyway, I didn't mean to, I just sorta waved at the whole fence, but that was foolish enough. All I wanted to do was give that thing a ride... outta the park... anywhere." Source: My Greatest Day in Baseball (John P. Carmichael)

"Baseball changes through the years. It gets milder." Source: The Babe Ruth Story (Babe Ruth)

"Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world." Source: The Babe Ruth Story (Babe Ruth)

"(Ty) Cobb is a prick. But he sure can hit. God Almighty, that man can hit." Source: Big Sticks (William Curran)

"Don't ever forget two things I'm going to tell you. One, don't believe everything that's written about you. Two, don't pick up too many checks."

"Gee, its lonesome in the outfield. It's hard to keep awake with nothing to do." Source: Babe: The Legend Comes to life (Robert W. Creamer)

"Hot as hell, ain't it Prez (Calvin Coolidge)?" Source: How the Weather Was (Roger Kahn)

"How to hit home runs: I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball...The harder you grip the bat, the more you can swing it through the ball, and the farther the ball will go. I swing big, with everything I've got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can." Source: Words of Wisdom (William Safire)

"I didn't mean to hit the umpire with the dirt, but I did mean to hit that bastard in the stands." Source: The Babe Ruth Story (Babe Ruth)

"I don't give a damn about any actors. What good will John Barrymore do you with the bases loaded and two down in a tight ball game. Either I get the money (more than Barrymore), or I don't play!" Source: Giants of Baseball (Bill Gutman)

"I'd play for half my salary if I could hit in this dump (Wrigley Field) all the time."

"If I'd just tried for them dinky singles I could've batted around .600."

"If it wasn't for baseball, I'd be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery." Source: Baseball As I Have Known It (Fred Lieb)

"I'll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will I give up women. They're too much fun."

"I never heard a crowd boo a homer, but I've heard plenty of boos after a strikeout." Source: Grand Slams and Fumbles (Peter Bellenson)

"I won't be happy until we have every boy in America between the ages of six and sixteen wearing a glove and swinging a bat."

"Just one (superstition). Whenever I hit a home run, I make certain I touch all four bases."

"Paris ain't much of a town." Source: How the Weather Was (Roger Kahn)

"Reading isn't good for a ballplayer. Not good for his eyes. If my eyes went bad even a little bit I couldn't hit home runs. So I gave up reading." Source: Babe: The Legend Comes to life (Robert W. Creamer)

"Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. You know how bad my voice sounds. Well, it feels just as bad. You know, this baseball game of ours comes up from the youth. That means the boys. And after you're a boy and grow up to play ball, then you come to the boys you see representing clubs today in your national pastime. The only real game in the world, I think, is baseball. As a rule, people think that if you give boys a football or a baseball or something like that, they naturally become athletes right away. But you can't do that in baseball.  You got to start from way down, at the bottom, when the boys are six or seven years of age. You can't wait until they're 14 or 15.   You got to let it grow up with you, if you're the boy. And if you try hard enough, you're bound to come out on top, just as these boys here have come to the top now.  There have been so many lovely things said about me today that I'm glad to have had the opportunity to thank everybody." Source Babe Ruth Day Speech Transcript, Yankee Stadium, April 27, 1947

"That last one sounded kinda high to me."

"The termites (cancer, the day before he died, to Connie Mack) have got me."

"The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime."

"What the hell has Hoover got to do with it (his contract being bigger than the Presidents)? Besides, I had a better year than he did."

"An outfield composed of (Ty) Cobb, (Tris) Speaker and (Babe) Ruth, even with Ruth, lacks the combined power of (Joe) DiMaggio, (Stan) Musial and (Ted) Williams." - Connie Mack

"A rabbit didn't have to think to know what to do to dodge a dog... The same kind of instinct told Babe Ruth what to do and where to be." - Sammy Vick

"Babe Ruth is dead and buried in Baltimore, but the game is bigger and better than ever." - Sparky Anderson

"Babe Ruth was the greatest baseball player that ever lived. I mean, people say he's less then a God, but more than a man. Like Hercules or something."- The Sandlot

"Babe Ruth struck out 1330 times." - Graffiti Seen in New York

"Babe Ruth, what can you say? You are almost speechless when people put your name alongside his name. I wish I can go back in time in meet him. Obviously, he was probably the most important sports figure in the world at that time. Hopefully, someday when I pass away, I get to meet him, and then I can really find out what he was really like." - Mark McGwire

"Don't compare me to Babe Ruth. God gave me the opportunity and the ability to be here at the right time, at the right moment, just like he gave Babe Ruth when he was playing. I just hope I can keep doing what I've been doing - keep taking care of business." - Sammy Sosa

"He had such a beautiful swing, he even looked good striking out." - Mark Koenig

"He hits a ball harder and further than any man I ever saw."- Bill Dickey

"He (Honus Wagner) was a gentle, kind man, a storyteller, supportive of rookies, patient with the fans, cheerful in hard times, careful of the example he set for youth, a hard worker, a man who had no enemies and who never forgot his friends. He was the most beloved man in baseball before (Babe) Ruth." - Bill James

"He was very brave at the plate. You rarely saw him fall away from a pitch. He stayed right in there. No one drove him out." - Casey Stengel

"I can't believe that Babe Ruth was a better player than Willie Mays. Ruth is to baseball what Arnold Palmer is to golf. He got the game moving. But I can't believe he could run as well as Mays, and I can't believe he was any better an outfielder." - Sandy Koufax

"I had a great game against him... I held him to three hits." - Rollie Stiles in the Los Angeles Times (Obituary)

"I hope he lives to hit one-hundred homers in a season. I wish him all the luck in the world. He has everybody else, including myself, hopelessly outclassed." - Frank "Home Run" Baker

"It's a pretty big shadow - it gives me lots of room to spread myself." - Lou Gehrig

"No one hit home runs the way Babe (Ruth) did. They were something special. They were like homing pigeons. The ball would leave the bat, pause briefly, suddenly gain its bearings, then take off for the stands." - Dizzy Dean

"Now I've had everything except for the thrill of watching Babe Ruth play." - Joe DiMaggio

"Now they talk on the radio about the record set by (Babe) Ruth, and (Joe) DiMaggio and Henry Aaron. But they rarely mention mine. Do you know what I have to show for the sixty-one home runs? Nothing, exactly nothing." - Roger Maris

"(Babe) Ruth made a grave mistake when he gave up pitching. Working once a week he might have lasted a long time and become a great star." - Tris Speaker

"(Babe Ruth) never played a night game, he never hit against fireball relief pitching, he never traveled cross-country for a night game and played a day game the next day, he never performed before millions of television viewers, he never had to run on artificial turf. It is the changes in the game, the modern factors that have made the game more difficult, that bring Babe in here as number three, behind (Willie) Mays and (Hank) Aaron. His feats were heroic. So were theirs. They simply did them under tougher conditions." - Maury Allen

"Some twenty years ago I stopped talking about the Babe (Ruth) for the simple reason that I realized that those who had never seen him didn't believe me." - Tommy Holmes

"The greatest name in American sports history is Babe Ruth, a hitter." - Ted Williams

"There's no question about it, Babe Ruth was the greatest instinctive baseball player who ever lived. He was a great hitter, and he had been a great pitcher." - Leo Durocher

"There will never be another Babe Ruth. He was the greatest home run hitter who ever lived. They named a candy bar after him." - Reggie Jackson

"They can talk about Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby and Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio and Stan Musial and all the rest, but I'm sure not one of them could hold cards and spades to (Ted) Williams in his sheer knowledge of hitting. He studied hitting the way a broker studies the stock market, and could spot at a glance mistakes that others couldn't see in a week." - Carl Yastrzemski

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

"Why shouldn't we pitch to Babe Ruth? We pitch to better hitters in the National League." - John McGraw

Quotes From & About Babe Ruth