"A baseball club is part of the chemistry of the city. A game isn't just an athletic contest. It's a picnic, a kind of town meeting." - New York Yankees President Michael Burke

"All ballplayers want to wind up their careers with the Cubs, Giants, or Yankees. They just can't help it." - Pitcher Dizzy Dean

"Baseball is like the United States of America. It's too big to be loused up by one man and one monumental mistake. It's even too great to be loused up by three recent monumental mistakes and a passel of small ones. The worst boner was the sale of the New York Yankees to the Columbia Broadcasting System and the clumsy manner in which it was consumated." - White Sox Owner Arthur C. Allyn

"During the 1920s New York Yankee owner Jacob Ruppert once described his perfect afternoon at Yankee Stadium. 'It's when the Yankees score eight runs in the first inning,' Ruppert said, 'and then slowly pull away.'" - Peter Golenbock in Dynasty: The New York Yankees (1975)

"Hating the Yankees is as American as pizza pie, unwed mothers, and cheating on your income tax." - Columnist Mike Royko

"Hating the Yankees isn't part of my act. It is one of those exquisite times when life and art are in perfect conjunction." - White Sox Owner Bill Veeck

"Have faith in the Yankees, my son." - Ernest Hemingway in The Old Man and the Sea (1952)

"Here at NBC there is just one more reason to hate the Yankees (who were owned by CBS)." - NBC Anchorman Chet Huntley

"I'd like to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee." - Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio

"I imagine rooting for the Yankees is like owning a Yacht." - Jimmy Cannon

"I'm going to buy the Yankees. I don't know what I'm going to pay for them, but I'm going to buy them." - Yankee Owner Dan Topping

"In a tough age which called for tough men in baseball, the Yankees were the toughest. They were managed by a perfectionist, bossed by a president who hated second place, and owned by a man who could say, even with a seventeen-game lead in 1936, "I can't stand the suspense. When are we going to clinch it?" - David Voigt in American Baseball (1970)

"It's great to be young and a Yankee." - Hall of Fame Pitcher Waite Hoyt

"I would rather beat the Yankees regularly than pitch a no-hit game." - Hall of Fame Pitcher Bob Feller

"One night I was watching a quiz show on TV and the question was, 'Name a baseball team synonymous with winning.' One girl said, 'Dodgers.' The other girl said, 'Giants.' That made me madder than hell. I kept saying, 'Yankees, you dummies.' And of course the answer was the Yankees." - Manager Billy Martin

"Only over my dead body will (Larry) MacPhail buy the Yankees." - Ed Barrow

"Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel." - Joe E. Lewis

"Sympathy is something that shouldn't be bestowed on the Yankees. Apparently it angers them." - Hall of Fame Pitcher Bob Feller

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

"The more self-centered and egotistical a guy is, the better ballplayer he's going to be. You take a team with twenty-five assholes and I'll show you a pennant. I'll show you the New York Yankees." - Pitcher Bill 'Spaceman' Lee

"The myth is that you put a Yankee uniform on a player and he becomes great." - Manager Birdie Tebbetts

"The secret of success in pitching lies in getting a job with the Yankees." - Hall of Fame Pitcher Waite Hoyt

"To be manager of the Yankees under the malevolent dictatorship of George Steinbrenner is like being married to Zsa Zsa Gabor - the union is short and sweet." - Sportswriter Bob Rubin

"Wall Street bankers supposedly back the Yankees; Smith College girls approve of them. God, Brooks Brothers, and United States Steel are believed to be solidly in the Yankees' corner... The efficiently triumphant Yankee maching is a great institution, but, as they say, who can fall in love with U.S. Steel?" - Gay Talese in There Are Fans - And Yankee Fans (1958)

"What does George (Steinbrenner) know about Yankee pride? When did he ever play for the Yankees?" - Manager Billy Martin

"When I first signed with the Yankees, the regulars wouldn't talk to you until you were with the team three or four years. Nowadays the rookies get $100,000 to sign and they don't talk to the regulars." - Hall of Fame Pitcher Lefty Gomez

"When I was a little boy, I wanted to be a baseball player and join a circus. With the Yankees I've accomplished both." - Graig Nettles

"You kind of took it for granted around the Yankees that there was always going to be baseball in October." - Hall of Fame Pitcher Whitey Ford

"You see, the Mets are losers, just like nearly everybody else in life. This is the team for the cab driver who gets held up and the guy who loses out on a promotion because he didn't maneuver himself to lunch with the boss enough. It is the team for every guy who has to get out of bed in the morning and go to work for short money on a job he does not like. The Yankees? Who does well enough to root for them, Laurence Rockefeller?" - Jimmy Breslin in Can't Anybody Here Play This Game? (1963)