"If you happen to be a baseball fan who reads the newspapers you've probably noticed that before a world series or any other big series the writers always print long stories of comparisons between individual players. They point out that Lou Gehrig, for instance, will hit a ball farther and harder than Joe Harris, but that Pie Traynor can go farther to his left than Joe Dugan. That's interesting—but so far as doping out the winner of the series is concerned, it's bunk. And it always gives the ball players a laugh. For ball players know that it isn't individuals who count. It's the way a team plays as a whole that determines its offensive power or its defensive strength. Smart ball players and smart managers consider offense and defense as units, knowing that it takes nine men to do the fielding and nine hitters to make up a batting order that will score runs."

“A man who works for another is not going to be paid any more than he is worth; you can bet on that. A man ought to get what he can earn. Don't make any difference whether it's running a farm, running a bank or running a show; a man who knows he's making money for other people ought to get some of the profits he brings in. It's business, I tell you. There ain't no sentiment to it. Forget that stuff.”

“There is one hit of mine which will not stay in the official records, but which I believe to be the longest clout ever made off a major league pitcher. At least some of the veteran sport writers told me they never saw such a wallop. The Yanks were playing an exhibition game with the Brooklyn Nationals at Jacksonville, Fla., in April, 1920. Al Mamaux was pitching for Brooklyn. In the first inning, the first ball he sent me was a nice, fast one, a little lower than my waist, straight across the heart of the plate. It was the kind I murder, and I swung to kill it. The last time we saw the ball it was swinging its way over the 10-foot outfield fence of Southside Park and going like a shot. The ball cleared the fence by at least 75 feet. Let's say the total distance traveled was 500 feet: the fence was 423 feet from the plate. If such a hit had been made at the Polo Grounds, I guess the ball would have come pretty close to the top of the screen in the centerfield bleachers.”

“I guess I should have written two books of my life, one for the adults and another for the kids.”

“I'll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will I give up women. They're too much fun.”

“In pitching, control is the main thing—one thing you've got to have. Few pitchers have it. In batting, it is timing—waiting on the ball, not hurrying the swing—just as it is in golf. Most hitters in baseball swing too quickly. They can't wait on the pitch. Old Joe Jackson could wait. So could Speaker and Cobb”

“The only real game — I think — in the world is baseball.”