Gil Hodges Quotes

I was a better hockey player than I was a baseball player.

I'm not bad (his speed). I'm no Joe Morgan, but I'm pretty good for a white guy.

I think one of the most difficult things for anyone who's played baseball is to accept the fact that maybe the players today are playing just as well as ever.

The first good player I watched as a kid was Joe DiMaggio, and that was like ballet. Since then, I played sandlot and college ball and came to understand how difficult it can be.

If you can do that - if you run, hit, run the bases, hit with power, field, throw and do all other things that are part of the game - then you're a good ballplayer.

A great ballplayer is a player who will take a chance.

Ted Williams was the greatest hitter I ever saw, but DiMaggio was the greatest all around player.

I started in for the ball but I just couldn't get it. I should have caught it because I was used to catching everything on the sandlots. But they hit the ball a lot harder in the major leagues and I just couldn't reach the ball this time.

The bat is not a toy, it's a weapon. It gives me everything in life, which helps me to do everything on the field.

There ain't much to being a ballplayer, if you're a ballplayer.

I was a ballplayer, but only for a limited time. I grew up playing in Wisconsin. It's a very sports-centric part of the country that I grew up in and I played a lot of sports, but baseball first and foremost. I played through high school. I was a middle-infielder.

The game is just, everybody talks about baseball, but I really think football probably has a little bit more American feeling than anything.

It was part of my recruiting to go to Cal because they knew I loved to play baseball. I don't know if I was good enough to make the team, but I worked out with the guys, and it was a lot of fun.

To this day, with all of these muscle-bound guys, nobody hit the ball further than Mickey Mantle, with his natural strength.

Maybe I was an even better cricketer than a footballer.

I have natural talent when it comes to batting.

I see myself as an average to above-average catcher in the big leagues.

I was in the top 1 percent of football players. Indie guys are in the bottom 95 percent of wrestlers.

I played all sports growing up. Baseball was always my favorite, though.

I obviously know how good I was, and people refer to the modern game being tougher.

In the movies, I never lost a fight. In baseball, I hardly ever won one.

In baseball, you have to remain calm, cool, and collected. In football, you can let out a little anger sometimes. It was a fun game, and I liked it, but I knew in my heart I was going to play baseball.

Paolo Guerrero is a good player - and Mladen Petric also. I think both are really good and even better than me.

John certainly gives it a good hit, doesn't he? My Sunday best is a Wednesday afternoon compared to him.

As a child, I could beat most kids in sprints, but overall, wrestling was the most natural sport for me. In fact, I was a pretty good high school wrestler. I was unusually quick and strong.