Ryne Sandberg Quotes

I played good ball in the minor leagues, and that's why they called me up to the major leagues.

I don't want to be one of those great players who never made it to the Series.

I had 12 years under my belt of baseball at the amateur level before I got to the big leagues.

I just wanted to go play in the big leagues. But possibly playing for the Yankees is very special.

Always wanted to be a Major League player. Loved baseball. Followed it. Loved to play. Plus, I could always hit.

I heard that in the United States the level of baseball was the highest in the world. So it was only natural that I would want to go there, as a baseball player.

I don't feel I could've played major league baseball.

It was always a dream of mine to play for the Orioles.

I didn't know if I could make it to the big leagues without going through Triple-A.

I always wanted to be a major-league baseball player.

At my growing years of 18 to 21 years old in the Minor Leagues, I dreamed of being a Philadelphia Phillie.

I would say I was jock. I went to Sierra College. I was a big baseball player. Getting into the MLB was my dream - to become a left-handed pitcher for the Yankees. That's what I was hoping, but life kind of went the other way.

When I started playing the game of baseball, the more I played and the better numbers I got, the more I started thinking about the Hall of Fame. But I never thought I had a chance to be there.

Well, I wanted to play twenty years in the major leagues. I never made it twenty though. I played nineteen.

Once you make the majors, it's never a great feeling to go back to the minors - no matter what the circumstances.

My father loved baseball and he cultivated my talent. I don't think he ever had any doubt in his mind that I would play professional baseball someday.

To be a big league ball player, you have to love the game.

You know, when you first come up, and you get called up to the big leagues, all you want to do is just, you just want to have a career, a nice career. You want to make a living at it.

If I could do it over, I'd want to come up to the big leagues like Mike Trout. He's exciting and I like watching him.

And then 45 years later, as I finished my career in the great city of Cleveland, that was another great way to end my career, going to the World Series.

Baseball cannot be learned as a trade. It begins with the sport of the schoolboy, and though it may end in the professional, I am sure there is not a single one of these who learned the game with the expectation of making it a business. There have been years in the life of each during which he must have ate and drank and dreamed baseball.

You have to hit the fastball to play in the big leagues.

I'm very thankful to the Yankees and to Major League Baseball for allowing me to play this game.

Every college player thinks they're on their way. But, delusions aside, I might have toiled in the minor leagues for a bit.

If I have the opportunity to go to the NFL, I'm going to take it.