Babe Ruth

"You cant manage yourself, Root. How do you expect to manage others?"

"I could hardly wait for the next mornings news stories. Despite the defeat, I thought some praiseworthy mention would be made of my ten perfect innings. Then I had my first lesson in the cost of playing with the worlds greatest ball player. Quite properly the headlines screamed the news of Babes cracking the home run record. Vivid descriptions of his 28th homer clearing the grandstand roof. But no mention of me. Down at the end of the piece one line was given to the Boston pitcher. It said, "Hoyt pitched for Boston." I was to know another version of that incident in after years, again Ruths teammate. As our Yankee ball club pulled into tour cities, the sports pages would say, "Ruth and twenty-four other ball players arrived in town today." This was the price we paid playing with the big fellow—but it was worth it. Babe returned it to us ten times over, and none of us who played with him would ever trade that experience for all the headlines in the country."

"He always threw to the right base. We say that about most outfielders. Ruth always threw to the right base. DiMaggio always threw to the right base. The others maybe did, maybe didn’t. Mays most of the time threw to the right base, but Ruth always threw to the right base."

"He is really a great outfielder, one of the greatest. He plays batters correctly, covers a lot more ground than youd think hed be able to do with his bulk, and has one of the deadliest throwing arms ever known. Besides, Babe has an accurate baseball judgment and never throws to the wrong base."

"The fans were on their feet yelling and waving and throwing scorecards and half-consumed frankfurters, bellowing unto high heaven that the Babe was the greatest man on earth, that the Babe was some kid, and that the Babe could have their last and bottom dollar, together with the mortgage on their house, their wives and furniture."

"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."

"Thats easy. The new rules have made these pitchers turn square, and their offerings have been clouted. I know some pitchers who used the old emery and the shiner and all the rest, and they were bearcats. Now they have to get by on their natural ability and they dont rate so high. I can think of one pitcher who was a wonder last year. They took the old sail ball away from him, and now he hasnt enough to get by in a good class AA league. So it goes. They say that the ball is livelier. I think that is the old bunk. The pitchers are not pitching as they used to and the batters have a better chance."

"I always swing at the ball with all my might. I hit or miss big and when I miss I know it long before the umpire calls a strike on me, for every muscle in my back, shoulders and arms is groaning, "You missed it." And be­lieve me, it is no fun to miss a ball that hard. Once I put myself out of the game for a few days by a miss like that."

"I was a bad kid. I say this without pride but with a feeling that it is better to say it. I live with one great hope: to help kids who now stand where I stood as a boy. If what I have to say here helps even one of them avoid some of my own mistakes, or take heart from such triumphs as I have had, this book will serve its purpose."

"Theres one thing in baseball that always gets my goat and thats the intentional pass. It isnt fair to the batter. It isnt fair to his club. Its a raw deal for the fans and it isnt baseball. By "baseball," I mean good square American sportsmanship because baseball represents America in sport. If we get down to unfair advantages in our national game we are putting out a mighty bad advertisement."

"Well, he was only two [home runs] up on me Saturday, but we wont say anything about distance."

"There is one hit of mine which will not stay in the official records, but which I believe to be the longest clout ever made off a major league pitcher. At least some of the veteran sport writers told me they never saw such a wallop. The Yanks were playing an exhibition game with the Brooklyn Nationals at Jacksonville, Fla., in April, 1920. Al Mamaux was pitching for Brooklyn. In the first inning, the first ball he sent me was a nice, fast one, a little lower than my waist, straight across the heart of the plate. It was the kind I murder, and I swung to kill it. The last time we saw the ball it was swinging its way over the 10-foot outfield fence of Southside Park and going like a shot. The ball cleared the fence by at least 75 feet. Lets say the total distance traveled was 500 feet: the fence was 423 feet from the plate. If such a hit had been made at the Polo Grounds, I guess the ball would have come pretty close to the top of the screen in the centerfield bleachers."