Phil Niekro Quotes

I remember going to see my dad pitch against other coal-mining teams, and he was successful with the knuckleball. I saw how bad guys would look like swinging, and how guys talked about how he could throw every day and didn't hurt his arm. That's how I grew up learning.

At the time I retired I was kind of known for it, as one of the guys whose career ended technically as a result of a big hit.

I was on my way to becoming a Hall of Famer and having my name in the rafters, but three surgeries in 14 months, that is not good. I wasn't the same player.

I never wanted to be an actor as a kid. I wanted to play hockey, like every other kid in Canada. I had a pretty good shot at it until I was 15 and badly injured myself.

I never resorted to the spitter until I was obliged to. I nearly ruined my arm throwing curves.

Show me a guy who can't pitch inside and I'll show you a loser.

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

I did enjoy football, but the injury factor for me, you know, I had so many issues. I don't know how long my career would've been.

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

I wanted to definitely be a musician or a good preacher or a heck of a baseball player. I couldn't play ball too good - I hurt my finger, and I stopped that. I couldn't preach, and well, all I had left was getting into the music thing.

You can't go out to the mound hobbling and take a pitcher out with a cane.

Play a little light catch and only some short sprints for me. Then on the day-of, it's just getting loosened up and ready to go out there and pitch.

I don't really miss pitching in games, and I don't think my arm could hold up. I would still love to try the radar gun, just not pitch on a consistent basis. I'd love to go and try to fire up the gun, though.

My father was an outfielder in the Milwaukee system before he hurt his elbow.

My true dream, ever since I was a kid, was to play professional baseball. It's something that I worked my whole life for. But that didn't work out with the knee surgeries and whatnot.

I wanted to be a baseball player, naturally, but I wasn't good enough. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. I just had a kind of energy, I was a fairly happy kid.

Playing for Midland, that helped me get to Arkansas. It was really all I ever wanted to do.

While I dealt with my share of injuries throughout my career, I was fortunate to have been healthy for the majority of our run in the 1990s. The same can be said about Michael Jordan.

When you get injured for a long time, it's not nice because you are out of the team and not involved anymore.

I hope people know I can throw now.

When I was 16, I'd been cast in 'Fast Food Nation.' And while I was playing in a charity baseball game, I ended up breaking my arm about a week before filming was starting.

Always, you miss all the players when they are injured.

Whenever we had career day at elementary school, and we could dress up like what you wanted to be, when I got on stage, mine was playing major league baseball.

Soccer was my first love, and I enjoyed playing on the left wing until a groin injury forced me out of the game in 2008.

I was a hockey player. I played hockey forever. That was my life and my job until I got injured, so I get sports, and I get the sports atmosphere, the feeling around other athletes, but I never played football.