Babe Ruth Quotes

Babe Ruth's page delivers blunt, funny baseball bragging for fans who love bold, gritty sports tales.

67 quotes

1. A man who knows he's making money for other people ought to get some of the profits he brings in. Don't make any difference if it's baseball or a bank or a vaudeville show. Its business, I tell you. There ain't no sentiment to it. Forget that stuff.

2. I didn't mean to hit the umpire with the dirt, but I did mean to hit that bastard in the stands.

3. What the hell has Hoover got to do with it? Besides, I had a better year than he did.

4. Yes, he's a prick, but he sure can hit. God Almighty, that man can hit!

5. To my little sick pal. I will try to knock you another homer, maybe two today

6. If it wasn't for baseball, I'd be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery. I have the same violent temper my father and older brother had. Both died of injuries from street fights in Baltimore, fights begun by flare-ups of their tempers.

7. Keed, I'll give you a little bit of advice. Don't believe anything they write about you, good or bad. Two, get the dough while the getting is good, but don't break your heart trying to get it. And don't pick up too many checks!

8. If I'd just tried for them dinky singles I could've batted around six hundred!

9. I decided to pick out the greatest hitter to watch and study, and Jackson was good enough for me.

10. I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball. In boxing, your fist usually stops when you hit a man, but its possible to hit so hard that your fist doesn't stop. I try to follow through in the same way. The harder you grip the bat, the more you can swing it through the ball, and the farther the ball will go. I swing big, with everything I've got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can.

11. The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime.

12. I'd play for half my salary if I could hit in this dump all the time.

13. Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.

14. It's hard to beat a person who never gives up.

15. All ballplayers should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill.

16. I'll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will I give up women. They're too much fun.

17. I copied Jackson's style because I thought he was the greatest hitter I had ever seen, the greatest natural hitter I ever saw. He's the guy who made me a hitter.

18. I only have one: whenever I hit a home run I make certain to touch all four bases.

19. After all, there's only one aswer to be made to the young fellow who is asking constantly for advice as to how to hit. The answer is: 'Pick out a good one and sock it!'

20. Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. You know how bad my voice sounds. Well, it feels just as bad. You know this baseball game of ours comes up from the youth. That means the boys. And after you've been a boy, and grow up to know how to play ball, then you come to the boys you see representing themselves today in our national pastime.

21. The only real game - I think - in the world is baseball.

22. There's been so many lovely things said about me, and I'm glad that I've had the opportunity to thank everybody. Thank you.

23. As soon as I got out there I felt a strange relationship with the pitcher's mound. It was as if I'd been born out there. Pitching just felt like the most natural thing in the world. Striking out batters was easy.

24. Baseball changes through the years. It gets milder.

25. Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world.

26. Don't let the fear of striking out hold you back.

27. Gee, its lonesome in the outfield. It's hard to keep awake with nothing to do.

28. I'd give a year of my life if I could hit a homerun on opening day of this great new park.

29. I've never heard a crowd boo a homer, but I've heard plenty of boos after a strikeout.

30. Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.

31. Reading isn't good for a ballplayer. Not good for his eyes. If my eyes went bad even a little bit I couldn't hit home runs. So I gave up reading.

32. Watch my dust.

33. Words fail me. When he stood up there at the bat before 50,000 persons, calling the balls and the strikes with gestures for the benefit of the Cubs in their dugout, and then with two strikes on him, pointed out where he was going to hit the next one and hit it there, I gave up. That fellow is not human.

34. Babe's interviewer interrupted to point the hole in which Babe put himself Saturday when he pointed out the spot he intended hitting his home run and asked the Great Man if he realized how ridiculous he would have appeared if he had struck out? 'I never thought of it,' said the Great Man. He simply had made up his mind to hit a home run and he did.

35. He wasn't a baseball player. He was a worldwide celebrity, an international star, the likes of which baseball has never seen since.

36. Some twenty years ago I stopped talking about the Babe for the simple reason that I realized that those who had never seen him didn't believe me.

37. I can't honestly say that I appreciate the way in which he [Ruth] changed baseball, but he was the most natural and unaffected man I ever knew. God, how I miss him.

38. It's hard to beat somebody when they don't give up.

39. If it wasn't for baseball, I'd be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery.

40. Baseball is the greatest game in the world and deserves the best you can give it.

41. All I can tell them is pick a good one and sock it. I get back to the dugout and they ask me what it was I hit and I tell them I don't know except it looked good.

42. It's hard to beat a person that never gives up.

43. I only have one superstition: I make sure to touch all the bases when I hit a home run.

44. Don't ever forget two things I'm going to tell you. One, don't believe everything that's written about you. Two, don't pick up too many checks.

45. Wealth is always attracted, never pursued.

46. A part of control is learning to correct your weaknesses.

47. I said I'm going to hit the next one right over the flagpole. God must have been with me.

48. I hit an inside-the-park home run! I beat it out! Can you believe that?

49. Read about your case of amnesia. Must be a new brand.

50. That last one sounded kinda high to me.

51. Well, the good Lord and good luck must have been with me because I did exactly what I said I was going to do.

52. A part of control is learning to correct your own weaknesses. The person doesn't live who was born with everything. Sometimes he has one weak point, generally he has several. The first thing is to know your faults. And then take on a systematic plan of correcting them. You know the old saying about a chain only being as strong as its weakest link. The same can be said in the chain of skills a man forges.

53. How to hit home runs: I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball... The harder you grip the bat, the more you can swing it through the ball, and the farther the ball will go. I swing big, with everything I've got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can.

54. Each strikeout brings me closer to my next homerun.

55. They started something here, and the kids are keeping the ball rolling.

56. Love the game of baseball and baseball will love you.

57. What the hell difference does it make?

58. I don't need to know where the green is. Where is the golf course?

59. What do I think about when I strike out? I think about hitting home runs.

60. I hear the cheers when they roared and the jeers when they echoed.

61. Paris ain't much of a town.

62. What the hell has (Herbert) Hoover got to do with it? Anyway, I had a better year than he did.

63. I don't give a damn about any actors. What good will John Barrymore do you with the bases loaded and two down in a tight ball game. Either I get the money (more than Barrymore), or I don't play!

64. Who is richer? The man who is seen, but cannot see? Or the man who is not being seen, but can see?

65. How about a little noise. How do you expect a man to putt?

66. The most important thing that a young athlete must do it pick the right sport. Not one that they like just a little bit, but one that they love. Because,if they don't really love their sport, they won't work as hard as they should. Me? I loved to hit.

67. I thank heaven we have had baseball in this world... the kids... our national pastime.