Joe Morgan Quotes

Sometimes you are going to have to games where you are going to have to manufacture runs, stealing. Particularly when you face real good pitching.

I just want to become a great leadoff hitter.

People say I stole a lot of bases. I stole the bases for a reason. I crossed the plate.

I can still steal a base anytime I get ready.

There are only so many pitches in this old arm, and I don't believe in wasting them throwing to first base.

Nobody talked about my defense or that I used to steal bases, too.

I am convinced that every boy, in his heart, would rather steal second base than an automobile.

I'm more conscious of where the outfielders are playing when I'm on base, and I don't take such wide turns anymore running around the bases. I'm still learning.

It's all stealing bases and winning games. If not, go home.

I even steal bases. I hear all the time that I'm slow, but hey, I have 66 stolen bases.

Stealing someone's signals was a part of the game and everybody attempted to do that. We had people that always tried to steal signals.

Why does everyone talk about the past? All that counts is tomorrow's game.

If you want to play quicker you can start running faster, but it's the ball that decides the speed of the game.

All you umpires, back to the bleachers. Referees, hit the showers. It's my game. I pitch, I hit, I catch. I run the bases. At sunset, I've won or lost. At sunrise, I'm out again, giving it the old try.

The mother is the most essential piece on the board, the one you must protect. Only she has the range. Only she can move in multiple directions. Once she's gone, it's a whole different game.

Lou Brock, along with Maury Wills, are probably the two players most responsible for the biggest change in the game over the last fifteen years - the stolen base.

Baseball is the slow creation of something beautiful. It is the almost boringly paced accumulation of what seems slight or incidental into an opera of bracing suspense. The game will threaten never to end, until suddenly it forces you to marvel at how it came to be where it is and to wonder at how far it might go. It’s the drowsy metamorphosis of the dull into the indescribable.

Baseball is the most perfect of games, solid, true, pure and precious as diamonds. If only life were so simple. Within the baselines anything can happen. Tides can reverse; oceans can open. That's why they say, "the game is never over until the last man is out." Colors can change, lives can alter, anything is possible in this gentle, flawless, loving game.

But that's the thing about basketball: you don't play games on paper.

I love to win. I'm very competitive in most games, but I think also the beauty of the game. There was something about it, the pieces, the shapes, something about them coordinating together and trying to get the other guy.

I'm aware of the luck in [BABIP], but at the same time, you can't directly influence it. You can just keep mixing your patterns, executing and locating, That's the human element of this game.

Everyone in the world disagrees with me, including some managers, but I think managing in the American League is much more difficult for that very reason (having the designated hitter). In the National League, my situation is dictated for me. If I'm behind in the game, I've got to pinch hit. I've got to take my pitcher out. In the American League, you have to zero in. You have to know exactly when to take them out of there. In the National League, that's done for you.

I really enjoy the experience of playing humans. The psychological game is so much more important.

I want to develop every base of my game-stealing bases, hitting, being a better fielder.

I have always had fun playing the game of baseball because I loved it so much.