Frank Deford Quotes

I feel like not knowing Joe Torre is a hole in my New York experience.

In the glory days of Orioles, when I was a newbie baseball writer for the Post, the roster of talkers was as good as the everyday lineup. Singy - Ken Singleton - Flanny, and Cakes - the underwear spokesman Jim Palmer - were my go-to guys, occupying stalls along one wall of the shabby chic clubhouse.

I used to go to the saloons with the baseball players, and while they would drink highballs and gin fizzes and beer, I would take lemonade

In a perfect world, if I can get conversations done at a batting cage, there's exactly the place I want to be.

Luckily, my only responsibility for 'Still Processing' is to show up and talk.

Baseball ought never be hurried. It is the only unhurried institution we have left, which is one reason, I think, we love it.

I'm that person in the bar who's like 'Can they turn the music down ? I would like to chat.' I don't like clothes. I'm terrible at all that stuff. I like sitting around and drinking a pint and gossiping or whatever.

Not only do I like to go to bars because I like to drink, I do like to drink, but I go because who do you see there? Baseball fans.

Tobacco smoke is the one element in which, by our European manners, men can sit silent together without embarrassment, and where no man is bound to speak one word more than he has actually and veritably got to say. Nay, rather every man is admonished and enjoined by the laws of honor, and even of personal ease, to stop short of that point; and at all events to hold his peace and take to his pipe again the instant he has spoken his meaning, if he chance to have any.

Ah, it was a fine night, a warm night, a wine-drinking night, a moony night, and a night to hug your girl and talk and spit and be heavengoing.

No one was more important to the game of baseball in the last half of the 20th century than Henry Aaron and no one writes about that supremely talented man, that tumultuous time and this treasure of a game better than Howard Bryant. Together, they are an extraordinary combination, and the book Bryant has written gets to the heart of the complicated and dignified, patient and consistent genuine hero that is Henry Aaron.

Imma sip until I feel it, Imma smoke until it's done.

I'm from Boston, and in Boston, you are born with a baseball bat in your hand. And actually, most of the bats in Massachusetts are used off the field instead of on the field, and we all had baseball bats in our cars in high school.

Everybody in recovery smokes. If you don't like smoking, don't even bother trying to get sober. Just stay drunk.

A pipe is greater than a bong. Because when you're smoking a pipe at least it makes you look like you're thinking about something.

I'd just like to see - in writing about baseball - more energy and better craft, minus statistical bludgeoning and invective.

From the very beginning I started with a beer and a cigarette because I couldn't figure out what to do with my hands. So usually I have a beer and cigarette and that's what I was doing with my hands because that looked natural and felt good.

I enjoy Pilates and I do yoga at home where I get peace and quiet. I think it helps that I don't drink and I never smoked. You see so many young girls smoking and you want to say to them 'it's bad for your skin and health, everything'.

If the devil were to offer me a resurgence of what is commonly called virility, I'd decline. ''Just keep my liver and lungs in good working order,'' I'd reply, ''so I can go on drinking and smoking!''

I've got the drinkers and the smokers and the eaters on my side.

If I could hang out with Jimi Hendrix, it wouldn't be over dinner.

I SEND YOU MY HEARTY CONGRATULATIONS UPON BEGINNING THE THIRTIETH YEAR OF YOUR GREAT CAREER AS MANAGER OF THE NEW YORK GIANTS, IN WHICH YOU HAVE DONE SO MUCH TO UPHOLD THE TRADITIONS OF CLEAN SPORTSMANSHIP IN THE MOST BELOVED NATIONAL GAME.

There are some young women movie stars who are doing it everywhere, smoking in every movie, sometimes even with placements with a pack of cigarettes.

Ah wonder if anybody this side of the Atlantic has ever bought a baseball bat with playing baseball in mind.

Some guys smoke. Some guys drink. Some guys chase women. I'm a big barbecue-sauce guy. ... I'm like that guy on the Odd Couple, and it's not the neat guy. I go into my room and find pieces of pizza under the laundry.