I'm not a headline guy. I know that as long as I was following Ruth to the plate I could have stood on my head and no one would have known the difference.

When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body - it's a blessing.

There is no room in baseball for discrimination. It is our national pastime and a game for all.

I worked real hard to learn to play first. In the beginning, I used to make one terrible play a game. Then, I got so I'd make one a week, and finally, I'd pull a real bad one maybe once a month. At the end, I was trying to keep it down to one a season.

The ballplayer who loses his head, who can't keep his cool, is worse than no ballplayer at all.

What are you going to do? Admit to yourself that the pitchers have you on the point of surrender? You can't do that. You must make yourself think that the pitchers are just as good as they always have been or just as bad.

I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.