I don't want them to forget Ruth, I just want them to remember me.

My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing was to do was keep swinging.

Failure is a part of success.

The triple is the most exciting play in baseball. Home runs win a lot of games, but I never understood why fans are so obsessed with them.

The pitcher has got only a ball. I've got a bat. So the percentage in weapons is in my favor and I let the fellow with the do the fretting.

The thing I like about baseball is that it's one-on-one. You stand up alone, and if you make a mistake, it's your mistake. If you hit a home run, it's your home run.

Guessing what the pitcher is going to throw is eighty percent of being a successful hitter. The other twenty percent is just execution.

I'm hoping someday that some kid, black or white, will hit more home runs than myself. Whoever it is, I'd be pulling for him.

On the field, blacks have been able to be super giants. But, once our playing days are over, this is the end of it and we go back to the back of the bus again.

It took me seventeen years to get three thousand hits in baseball. It took one afternoon on the golf course.

I never doubted my ability, but when you hear all your life you're inferior, it makes you wonder if the other guys have something you've never seen before. If they do, I'm still looking for it.

I have looked for the same pitch my whole career, a breaking ball. All of the time, I never worried about the fastball. They couldn't throw it past me, none of them.

I don't feel right unless I have a sport to play or at least a way to work up a sweat.

I never smile when I have a bat in my hands. That's when you've got to be serious. When I get out on the field, nothing's a joke to me. I don't feel like I should walk around with a smile on my face.

History has a way of doing that. People appreciate it more the longer it lasts.

Baseball needs me because it needs somebody to stir the pot, and I need it because it's my life. It's the means I have to make a little difference in the world. 

I don't see pitches down the middle anymore - not even in batting practice.

Sure, this country has a black president, but when you look at a black president, President Obama is left with his foot stuck in the mud from all of the Republicans with the way he's treated. We have moved in the right direction, and there have been improvements, but still we have a long ways to go in the country.