He (Shoeless Joe Jackson) was the finest natural hitter in the history of the game.

He batted against spitballs, shineballs, emeryballs and all the other trick deliveries. He never figured anything out or studied anything with the same scientific approach I gave it. He just swung. If he'd ever had any knowledge of batting, his average would have been phenomenal. ... he seemed content to just punch the ball, and I can still see those line drives whistling to the far precincts. Joe Jackson hit the ball harder than any man ever to play baseball.

The great American game should be an unrelenting war of nerves.

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

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.

The way those clubs shift against Ted Williams, I can't understand how he can be so stupid not to accept the challenge to him and hit to left field.

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