Sports Anecdote Quotes

Wiffle ball was my first experience hitting left-handed.

My high-school coach Tony Reginelli was kind of famous for 'Reggie-isms,' kind of like 'Yogi-isms.' He always said if you want to be a good quarterback, when sprinting left you want to be amphibious and throw left-handed. I told him, 'You mean ambidextrous, coach?'

All last year we tried to teach him (Fernando Valenzuela) English, and the only word he learned was million.

I have recall. I don't know why or how. I had a guy once who said he played against me in novice [league, for kids under nine], for the Detroit Lasers. And I said, "Oh yeah, we beat you in the tournament, 8-1 and I think I scored seven goals, and the goalie was left-handed." And he was, "Oh my God. I was the goalie!" .

I struck out with two men on base. I was so angry, so frustrated, I turned and without even thinking about it, snapped my bat over my thigh. The bat split right in half. Afterward, reporters asked me if it was the first time I'd ever broken a bat over my thigh. "I broke an aluminum bat over my knee in college," I said. (I was just kidding).

When I got to the NFL, they asked me what number I wanted, and I said No. 44, but they told me tight ends are not allowed to have that number. So I said, 'Just double it up for me if you can' and took No. 88. I figured I'd be twice as good as I was.

The first time I carried drinks was during the 2004 Champions Trophy. It was a wet outfield and I was running with the drinks and I couldn't stop myself and just went sliding into Sourav Ganguly, who was giving a team chat in the huddle.

We always looked forward to playing Aston Villa to hear him mangle Ugo Ehiogu's name. "Make sure you pick up Ehugu, Ehogy, whatever his name is."

After all these years, it's still embarrassing for me to play on the American golf tour. Like the time I asked my caddie for a sand wedge and he came back ten minutes later with a ham on rye.

I kept hearing I'd be traded to San Francisco. Man I would love that. I even went so far as to go into the locker room singing 'I left my heart in San Francisco'. Nobody laughed or said a word. I figured maybe I'd get my wish

I played quite a bit for my home team, Morriston, in my teens. I batted and bowled, but I suffered the utter humiliation once when one of the Pontarddulais batsmen hit 32 runs in one over against me.

At Tiger Stadium, the dugouts are so low that you walk in and hit your head on the ceiling. People would say, 'Don't feel bad. Ty Cobb did the same thing.'

I was such a dangerous hitter I even got intentional walks during batting practice.

No one can ever see the ball hit the bat because it's physically impossible to focus your eyes that way. However, when I hit the ball especially hard, I could smell the leather start to burn as it struck the wooden bat.

I watched the Tyson-Holyfield fight with Stallone. I remember when Tyson bit him, Sly looked at me and said, 'I think he bit him'. I said, 'I think you're right, Rock.'

My greatest moment as a jock occurred when I was 14 and playing punch ball in front of my house on Albemarle Road near East 17th Street in Brooklyn. I ran back, back for a ball, and it fell in my hands. I didn't even see it. Everyone congratulated me on the catch, and I never told them how it really happened.

When I was a freshman, I fooled around with shooting free throws this way: For some reason, I thought you had to stay within the top half of that free-throw circle, so I would step back to just inside the top of the circle, take off from behind the line and dunk. They outlawed that, but I wouldn't have done it in a game, anyway. I was a good free throw shooter in college." Actually he was a 62% free throw shooter, which is poor except in comparison to his 51% as a pro.

It was funny, when I thought of it afterward, how Ruth and Gehrig looked as they stood there. The Babe must have been waiting for me to get the ball up a little so he could get his bat under it.