When I played ball, I didn't play for fun. . . . It's no pink tea, and mollycoddles had better stay out. It's a contest and everything that implies, a struggle for supremacy, a survival of the fittest.

That boy Mantle is a good one.

Walter Johnson's fastball looked about the size of a watermelon seed and it hissed at you as it passed.

Every great batter works on the theory that the pitcher is more afraid of him than he is of the pitcher.

The base paths belonged to me, the runner. The rules gave me the right. I always went into a bag full speed, feet first. I had sharp spikes on my shoes. If the baseman stood where he had no business to be and got hurt, that was his fault.

I've been called one of the hardest bargainers who ever held out, and I'm proud of it.

I regret to this day that I never went to college. I feel I should have been a doctor.