American Pastime Quotes

Why the fairy tale of Willie Mays making a brilliant World Series catch, and then dashing off to play stickball in the street with his teenage pals. That's baseball. So is the husky voice of a doomed Lou Gehrig saying, 'I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.'

When I was growing up, the first thing I wanted to be was a cowboy. That lasted till I was about ten. Then I wanted to be a baseball player. Preferably shortstop for the New York Yankees.

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

Before seeing 'The Pride of the Yankees,' you may or may not know that the Yankees referred to are the ones who win the World Series each year. After seeing it you will find that the reference is indirect.

Basketball is a game. Baseball is a religion. Baseball is American.

Baseball is a boy's game that makes grown men cry.

Baseball, because of its continuity over the space of America and the time of America, is a place where memory gathers.

So George Burns and my grandpa took me to my first baseball game.

In August of 1921, one of the great American combinations was unveiled—even better than the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This fortuitous new blend was radio and baseball.

Baseball is a habit. The slowly rising crescendo of each game, the rhythm of the long season--these are the essentials and they are remarkably unchanged over nearly a century and a half. Of how many American institutions can that be said?

Marx was wrong--religion is not the opiate of the masses, baseball is.

Baseball, while you're doing it, you think it's going to last forever.

The charm about baseball is everyone has played it in some form. Everyone relates to it.

Baseball is very big at the present time. This makes me think baseball will live longer than Casey Stengel or anybody else.

Baseball is for the leisurely afternoons of summer and for the unchanging dreams.

Baseball is a dull game only for those with dull minds.

Baseball is Heaven's gift to mortals.

Baseball is a game of life. It's not perfect, but it feels like it is.

Baseball has a special place in our hearts. It is the game that shows us as we would like to be.

I'm just a beat up old third baseman. I'm just a small part of a wonderful game that is a tremendous part of America today.

I think you come to watch baseball, and if you're a true fan, then you enjoy watching baseball. MLB tries to change this and change that, speed up the games, but baseball's baseball. You can't change it. It's America's pastime. It's the greatest game on earth. I don't really want to change it that much.

We always think of a diet with a big groan. But I think diets are fun. I think it is an American pastime for a lot of women.

I would always sing it (Take Me Out To The Ballgame) because I think it's the only song I knew the words to.

Baseball has the largest library of law and love and custom and ritual, and therefore, in a nation that fundamentally believes it is a nation under law, well, baseball is America's most privileged version of the level field.