Mickey Mantle Quotes

I leaned on him for support when I got out of the cab, and he just crumpled to the ground. That's how we found out.

You might as well go in and start getting dressed. I'm going to hit his first pitch for a home run.

The best team I ever saw, and I really mean this, was the '61 Yankees.

If you want to know who was better, me or Willie Mays, you have to look at our career stats. And Willie's bottom line was better.

What did you say, Joe?

I expected him to say, 'Hang in there' or something like that. It took me an hour to talk him into giving me another chance!

To get a better piece of chicken, you'd have to be a rooster.

At my best I was as good as anyone.

Well, baseball was my whole life. Nothing's ever been as fun as baseball.

Billy (Martin) was a great one for jokes. He liked to play a joke more than anyone I ever knew.

Casey wanted us to stay loose. That didn't mean clowning around. He just meant we should be confident and relaxed. We shouldn't feel that one strikeout was going to end the season for us.

The greatest thing I ever saw was Roger Maris breaking Babe Ruth's record.

It looked like Roy Rogers rode through on Trigger, and Trigger kicked the guy in the face.

Bravery is a complicated thing to describe. You can't say it's three feet long and two feet wide and that it weighs four hundred pounds or that it's colored bright blue or that it sounds like a piano or that it smells like roses. It's a quality, not a thing.

I guess you could say I'm what this country is all about.

All I have is natural ability.

Of course, I didn't tell you about all the times I said I was going to hit one and it didn't happen.

If the World Series was on the line and I could pick one pitcher to pitch the game, I'd choose Whitey Ford every time.

Before you go, would you sign that case of balls for me?

Casey didn't easily forgive a guy who got doubled up on a hit-and-run play. He didn't see any reason why the runner couldn't take a quick glance back toward the plate to make sure the ball was hit safely.

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.

Sometimes I think if I had the same body and the same natural ability and someone else's brain, who knows how good a player I might have been.

Today's Little Leaguers, and there are millions of them each year, pick up how to hit and throw and field just by watching games on TV. By the time they're out of high school, the good ones are almost ready to play professional ball.

The biggest game I ever played in was probably Don Larsen's perfect game.

We know you can bunt, Mick. You're not down here to bunt. You're here to get some hits and get your swing back.

I never understood how someone who was dying could say he was the luckiest man in the world, but now I understand.

I don't care what the situation was, how high the stakes were - the bases could be loaded and the pennant riding on every pitch, it never bothered Whitey. He pitched his game. Cool. Craft. Nerves of steel.

As far as I'm concerned, 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.

I never got to see the '27 Yankees. Everyone says that was the greatest team ever. But I think it would've been a great series if we'd have had the chance to play them.

He said to play louder. He can't hear you.

He can run, steal bases, throw, hit for average, and hit with power like I've never seen. Just don't put him at shortstop.

My biggest regret was letting my lifetime average drop below .300. I always felt I was a .300 hitter, and if I could change one thing that would be it.

After a play in the field Casey would turn (to the players on the bench) and say 'What did he do wrong?' or 'You're better than that guy.' Either way, he'd keep them from getting stale.

It was all I lived for, to play baseball.

As far as he knew, I was dying.

When I first came to Yankee Stadium I used to feel like the ghosts of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were walking around in there.

If I send the ball home, I know what will happen to it. My twin brothers will take it out on the lot, like any 20-cent rocket.

To play 18 years in Yankee Stadium is the best thing that could ever happen to a ballplayer.

The biggest thrill I ever had was in 1969, when they held day at Yankee Stadium.

I don't care who you are, you hear those boos.

It's what you're worth.

I can't play any more. I can't hit the ball when I need to. I can't steal second when I need to. I can't go from first to third when I need to. I can't score from second when I need to. I have to quit.

I don't know why, but for some reason I seem to be more popular now than when I was playing.

All the ballparks and the big crowds have a certain mystique. You feel attached, permanently wedded to the sounds that ring out, to the fans chanting your name, even when there are only four or five thousand in the stands on a Wednesday afternoon.

My dad taught me to switch-hit. He and my grandfather, who was left-handed, pitched to me every day after school in the back yard. I batted lefty against my dad and righty against my granddad.

You don't have to talk to me about pensions. I won't be around long enough to collect one.

No man in the history of baseball had as much power as . No man.

He who has the fastest golf cart never has a bad lie.