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With a pun on the great baseball book, The Glory of Their Times, Bill Schaefer treats us today to an extensive collection of some of the greatest lines of baseball humor and wisdom. You’ll recognize many, but others will be new to you. Thanks Bill, for adding a bit of much-needed levity to our baseball lives!

 

From the Lighter Side: 

BASEBALL’S CUTTING EDGE HUMOR: “THE GLORY OF THEIR (FUNNY) LINES”

“In our sun-down perambulations of late, through the outer parts of Brooklyn, we have observed several parties of youngsters playing “base,” a certain game of ball…Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our close rooms…The game of ball is glorious.”–Walt Whitman, 1846

Few can turn a phrase like Whitman. Baseball certainly can be glorious but it also possesses the key element of cutting-edge humor. Rafael Sabitini’s novel, Scaramouche, opens with the memorable line, “He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.” A British actor once said, “In an altogether unreasonable world, laughter is the emergency exit for humans.”

In preparing the essay, it was a real labor of love—becoming immersed in the funny, sometimes profound quotes running the gamut of baseball people and including some of the all-time characters of the game. The only thing missing for me was the intoxicating aroma of cigar smoke, which permeated the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium back in the day. (Unfortunately, my wife stopped smoking her Cuban corona imports shortly after we got married). 

Let’s enter into baseball’s unique lexicon and see what we’ve got…

“Baseball is reassuring. It makes me feel as if the world isn’t going to blow up.”—Sharon Olds.

“Say this much for big league baseball—it is beyond any question the greatest conversation piece ever invented in America.”—Bruce Catton

“He hits from both sides of the plate. He’s amphibious.”—Yogi Berra

“All I can tell ‘em is I pick out a good one and sock it. I get back to the dugout and they ask me what it was I hit and I tell ‘em I don’t know except it looked good.”—Babe Ruth

“So I’m ugly. So what? I never saw anyone hit with his face.”—Lawrence Peter Berra

“I can remember a reporter asking for a quote, and I didn’t know what a quote was. I thought it was some kind of soft drink.”—Joe DiMaggio

“I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.”—Sandy Koufax

“You can sum up the game of baseball in one word: you never know.”—Joaquin Andujar.

“I never took the game home with me. I always left it in some bar.”—Bob Lemon

“Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing. Breathing first, winning next.”—George Steinbrenner

“It ain’t nothin’ till I call it.”—legendary umpire, Bill Klem

“They broke it to me gently. The manager came up to me before a game and told me they didn’t allow visitors in the clubhouse.”—Bob Uecker

“I knew my career was over. In 1965, my baseball card came out with no picture.”—Bob Uecker

                       Wait There’s More…                                    

“I never questioned the integrity of an umpire. Their eyesight, yes.”-Leo Durocher

“They give you a round bat and they throw you a round ball. And they tell you to hit it square.”—Willie Stargell

“If horses won’t eat it (artificial turf), I don’t want to play on it.”—Dick Allen

“If you get three strikes, not even the best lawyer in the world can get you off.”-Bill Veeck (as in wreck)

“All I remember about my wedding day in 1967, is that the Cubs lost a doubleheader.”—George Will

“How hard is hitting? Ever walk into a pitch-black room full of furniture that you’ve never been in before and try to walk through it without bumping into anything? Well, it’s harder than that.”—Ted Kluszewski

“A lot of people my age are dead at the present time.”—Casey Stengel

“I don’t want to play golf. When I hit the ball I want others to chase it.”—Rogers Hornsby

“Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for the house in blackjack.”—Adam Morrow

“If you don’t think too good, don’t think too much.”—Ted Williams

“I’d rather be the shortest player in the majors than the tallest player in the minors.”—Freddie Patek (nicknamed The Flea, shortstop Patek was the smallest MLB player of his time at 5’5”).

“Slumps are like a soft bed. They’re easy to get into and hard to get out of.”—Johnny Bench

                Rounding Third-Can We Beat the Throw?

 “Ninety feet between the bases is the nearest thing to perfection that man has yet achieved.”—Red Smith

“On Father’s Day, we again wish you all a happy birthday.”—Ralph Kiner

“If God let you hit a home run last time up, then who struck you out the time before that?”—Sparky Anderson

“My goals are to hit .300, score 100 runs, and stay injury prone.”—Mickey Rivers

“This is really more fun than being president. I really do love baseball and I wish we could do this out on the lawn every day.”—Ronald Reagan on playing ball with old-timers, 1983

“Baseball is only a game, but they keep a book on you. When it’s all over for you, the game has got you measured.”—Joe Garagiola

“Gimme good pitching and long hitting, and let the rest of them managers get just as smart as they want!”—manager Wilbert Robinson

“Don’t pull that stuff on me. How can a pipsqueak like you be Babe Ruth’s manager?”—doorman to diminutive Yankees skipper Miller Huggins

“Throw strikes. The plate don’t move.”—Satchel Paige

“Josh, I wish you and Satchel played with me on the Cardinals. Hell, we’d win the pennant by July 4 and go fishin’ until World Series time.”—Dizzy Dean to Josh Gibson in 1934

“Above anything else, I hate to lose.”—Jackie Robinson

“Son, I won more games than you’ll ever see.”—Cy Young, to a young reporter

“With this batting slump I’m in, I was so happy to hit a double that I did a tap dance on second base. They tagged me between taps.”—Frenchy Bordagaray

                              A Jolley Ending!

 We’ll close with this funny story concerning Smead Jolley, who so fit his name in looks and personality. Big for his era at 6’3”, 210, Jolley was gregarious and confident and batted .367 in 16 minor league seasons. For four years in the majors (1930-33), with the White Sox and Red Sox, he hit .305 with good power. But Smead was an intensely bad fielder. In his rookie year with Chicago, Jolley was

tutored extensively by manager Donie Bush on how to run up the sloping hill, then known as “Duffy’s Cliff,” which fronted the 37-foot wall at Fenway Park. Smead navigated the slope well on May 22, but ran into trouble the next day. Running up the hill on a fly ball, a sudden gust of wind buffeted the drive. Jolley stopped and dove from the top of the incline, skidding on his chin all the way down. The ball bounced off his head. The crowd howled hysterically. Smead didn’t think it was so funny, “Donie taught me how to go up the slope but didn’t teach me how to come down!”

Bill Schaefer

Sources: Baseball, an Illustrated History, Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns; Rafael Sabitini, Wikipedia; SABR, article Smead Jolley, by Bill Nowlin; 2715 One-Line Quotations for Speakers, Writes and Raconteurs, Edward F. Murphy; The Wit & Wisdom of Baseball, Saul Wisnia with Dan Schlossberg; The Bathroom Baseball Book, Red-Letter Press, Inc.; Smead Jolley, baseball reference, web.

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