"A ball player has to be kept hungry to become a big leaguer. That's why no boy from a rich family has ever made the big leagues." Source: New York Times (April 30, 1961)

"All pitchers are born pitchers." Source: Out of My League (George Plimpton)

"I came up twice in the game with the bases loaded and both times I hit balls into the alley, four-hundred and fifty feet away. Home runs in any other park. Well, each time my own brother robbed me by making catches on the warning track. Instead of a possible eight RBI, or at least five or six, I got nothing. That night, Dom (DiMaggio) came over to my place for dinner. I remember letting him in the door and then not speaking to him until we were almost done eating. I was that mad."

"I can remember a reporter asking me for a quote, and I didn't know what a quote was. I thought it was some kind of soft drink."

"I'd like to thank the good Lord for making me a Yankee." Source: Yankee Stadium Speech (October 1, 1949)

"If anyone wants to know why three kids in one family made it to the big leagues they just had to know how we helped each other and how much we practiced back then. We did it every minute we could." Source: Giants of Baseball (Bill Gutman)

"I feel like I have reached the stage where I can no longer produce for my club, my manager, and my teammates. I had a poor year, but even if I had hit .350, this would have been my last year. I was full of aches an pains and it had become a chore for me to play. When baseball is no longer fun, it's no longer a game." Source: The Sporting News (December 19, 1951)

"If I were sitting down with George Steinbrenner (to discuss a salary) and based on what Dave Winfield got for his statistics, I'd have to say, 'George, you and I are about to become partners.'" Source: Sports Illustrated (May 18, 1981)

"I'm a ballplayer, not an actor."

"I'm just a ballplayer with one ambition, and that is to give all I've got to help my ball club win. I've never played any other way." Source: Casey (Joseph Durso)

"I no longer have it (desire to play)." Source: Time Magazine (December 24, 1951)

"I think there are some players born to play ball."

"Mr. Barrow, there is only one answer to that, Mr. (Lou) Gehrig (contract was only $1,000 more) is terribly underpaid."

"Now I've had everything except for the thrill of watching Babe Ruth play." Source: Hall of Fame Induction Day Speech

"There is always some kid who may be seeing me for the first or last time, I owe him my best." Source: The Sporting News (April 4, 1951)

"The test of an outfielder's skill comes when he has to go against the fence to make a catch."

"Too many kids today are playing major league ball and don't belong there."

"You always get a special kick on opening day, no matter how many you go through. You look forward to it like a birthday party when you're a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen."

"You start chasing a ball and your brain immediately commands your body to 'Run forward, bend, scoop up the ball, peg it to the infield,' then your body says, 'Who me?'"

"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

"As far as I'm concerned, (Hank) 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." - Mickey Mantle

"As one of nine men, (Joe) DiMaggio is the best player that ever lived." - Connie Mack

"(Joe) DiMaggio seldom showed emotion. One day after striking out, he came into the dugout and kicked the ball bag. We all went "ooooh". It really hurt. He sat down and the sweat popped out on his forehead and he clenched his fists without ever saying a word. Everybody wanted to howl, but he was a god. You don't laugh at gods." - Jerry Coleman

"(Joe) DiMaggio was the greatest all-around player I ever saw. His career cannot be summed up in numbers and awards. It might sound corny, but he had a profound and lasting impact on the country." - Ted Williams

"He had great wrists and hit balls like rockets, with top-spin, that exploded past third basemen. It always seemed as if he hit the ball hard. Every at bat." - Bobby Doerr

"He had the greatest instinct of any ball player I ever saw, he made the rest of them look like plumbers." - Art Passarella

"He just had that certain air about him that let you know he was something special." - Joe Torre

"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." - Mickey Mantle

"He's the most complete ball player I've ever seen. He can hit, hit for power, run, throw, and play the outfield." - Joe McCarthy who was then asked by a reporter if he could bunt to which he replied, "I'll never know."

"He was just a smooth outfielder and smooth in his hitting. No mistakes, ever. He was a solid ball player in every way. I never saw him make a mistake, but there was a smooth way he had of going about everything. That's why they put that name on him, The Yankee Clipper." - Red Schoendienst

"I don't think anyone can ever put into words the great things (Joe) DiMaggio did. Of all the stars I've known, DiMaggio needed the least coaching." - Joe McCarthy

"I'm very pleased and very proud of my accomplishments, but I'm most proud of that (hitting four-hundred home runs and three-thousand hits). Not (Ted) Williams, not (Lou) Gehrig, not (Joe) DiMaggio did that. They were Cadillacs and I'm a Chevrolet." - Carl Yastrzemski

"I wish everybody had the drive he had. He never did anything wrong on the field. I'd never seen him dive for a ball, everything was a chest-high catch, and he never walked off the field." - Yogi Berra

"I would like to take the great DiMaggio fishing, the old man said. They say his father was a fisherman. Maybe he was as poor as we are and would understand." - Ernest Hemingway in The Old Man and the Sea

"Joe DiMaggio batting sometimes gave the impression, the suggestion that the old rules and dimensions of baseball no longer applied to him, and that the game had at last grown unfairly easy." - Donald Hall

"Name a better right handed hitter, or a better thrower, or a better fielder, or a better base runner. That's right, a better base runner. Did you ever see him slide when he hooked the bag with his toe? Absolutely perfect." - Hank Greenberg

"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

"Sometimes I sit in my den at home and read stories about myself. Kids used to save whole scrapbooks on me. They get tired of them and mail them to me. I'll go in there and read them, and you know what? They might as well be about (Stan) Musial and (Joe) DiMaggio, it's like reading about somebody else." - Mickey Mantle

"Ted Williams was the greatest hitter I ever saw, but (Joe) DiMaggio was the greatest all around player." - Bob Feller

"There was an aura about him. He walked like no one else walked. He did things so easily. He was immaculate in everything he did. Kings of State wanted to meet him and be with him. He carried himself so well. He could fit in any place in the world." - Phil Rizzuto

"There was never a day when I was as good as Joe DiMaggio at his best. Joe was the best, the very best I ever saw." - Stan Musial

"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

"Whether your name is (Lou) Gehrig or (Cal) Ripken, (Joe) DiMaggio or (Jackie) Robinson, or that of some youngster who picks up his bat or puts on his glove, you are challenged by the game of baseball to do your very best day in and day out. That's all I've ever tried to do." - (Cal) Ripken, Jr.

"You saw him standing out there and you knew you had a pretty darn good chance to win the baseball game." - Red Ruffing