Leave it to that eminent philosopher Yogi Berra to put the national pastime in perspective: "It ain't like football," he once noted. "You can't make up no trick plays." Maybe it's just that physical straightforwardness that has led to so much written and verbal razzle-dazzle on the game. Yogi's is just one of the many stellar observations collected in The Quotable Baseball Fanatic. Some, like Babe Ruth's poignant reaction to the Black Sox scandal--"It was like hearing that my church had sold out"--are right over the heart of the matter; others, like Reggie Jackson's "I represent the underdog and overdog in our society," are straight out of left field. Given baseball's hold on our imagination, both lines are perfectly fair, as the host of familiar and not-so-familiar quotations that wind up landing safely in between. --Jeff Silverman
Book Description
"It ain't like football. You can't make up no trick plays." --Yogi Berra
"Come out and see my Amazin' Mets. I been in the game a hundred years but I see new ways to lose I never knew existed before." --Casey Stengel
"[Night baseball] is just a fad. It'll never last after the novelty wears off." --Ed Barrow
"The pitcher only had a ball, I had a bat." --Henry Aaron
"Trying to sneak a fastball by [Buck Leonard] was like trying to sneak a sunrise past a rooster."
--Monte Irvin
In this collection, players, writers, fans, and observers--famous and infamous--share their insights, witticisms, and anecdotes about the grand old pastime of baseball. From the nature of the game to the business of baseball-and almost every facet in between-there are classic sayings from such notables as:
* A. Bartlett Giamatti * Red Barber * Donald Hall * Catfish Hunter * Ring Lardner * Philip Roth * Ty Cobb * Nelson Algren * Leo Durocher * Stephen Jay Gould * Reggie Jackson * Connie Mack * Jackie Robinson * George F. Will * Sparky Anderson * Frank Deford * Rickey Henderson * W. D. Kinsella * Satchel Paige * Mike Schmidt * Ted Williams
For fans of baseball tradition, baseball literature, and baseball players, this is a rare collection. It makes a great gift.
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