An All-Star Salute To Baseball

As we approach this year's All-Star Game, here is a #ThoughtsAndObservations salute to the game most, if not all of us consider to be the National Pastime.

"Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona." George Will - U.S. journalist, author, writes for The Washington Post and is a regular commentator for NBC News and MSNBC.

"Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.” Ted Williams – U.S. professional baseball player and manager, played his entire 19-year MLB career for the Boston Red Sox.

“You may not think you’re going to make it. You may want to quit. But if you keep your eye on the ball, you can accomplish anything.” Hank Aaron – U.S. professional baseball player, his 755 career home runs broke the long-standing MLB record set by Babe Ruth and stood as the most for 33 years.

“You can get base hits or home runs, but you can’t get a grand slam without both.” Richie Norton – U.S. businessman, author, blogger.

“A coyote game of paths and chances…the demon virtues — patience, deception, quick hands, craftiness…The fundamental truth: a baseball game is nothing but a great slow contraption for getting you to pay attention to the cadence of a summer day…That’s why baseball is more like life than other games.” Michael Chabon – U.S. novelist, screenwriter, columnist, short story writer.

“Baseball's clock ticks inwardly and silently, and a man absorbed in a ball game is caught in a slow, green place of removal and concentration and in a tension that is screwed up slowly and ever more tightly with each pitcher's windup and with the almost imperceptible forward lean and little half-step with which the fielders accompany each pitch. Whatever the pace of the particular baseball game we are watching, whatever its outcome, it holds us in its own continuum and mercifully releases us from our own.” Roger Angell – U.S. essayist known for his writing on sports, especially baseball, was a regular contributor to The New Yorker.

“If there was magic in this world, it happened within sight of the three bases and home plate. […] Wrigley [stadium]was a field of dreams. Dreams of eternal glory for the men who ran to the outfield, who took their respective bases, and prepared for battle against those who would dare enter their hallowed realm. Dreams for the kids in the stands, all wanting to don a uniform, kiss their mom’s goodbye, and wield their bats as enchanted weapons destined to knock the cover off the ball.” Tee Morris – U.S. writer, blogger, podcaster.

“Playing baseball for pay – home run. Teaching kids to play the game – priceless.” Jack Perconte – U.S. professional MLB baseball player.

“Confidence is so big in baseball. This is one thing that makes a naturally good baseball player great, and moms are oftentimes the reason kids have confidence in themselves.” Nick Rotola – U.S. college baseball player, business entrepreneur.

“Baseball gives a growing boy self-poise and self-reliance. Baseball is a man maker.” Al Spalding – U.S. baseball player, manager, executive, co-founder of A.G. Spalding sporting goods company.

“Nobody wanted me. Scouts told me to go to school, to forget baseball. Coaches said, ‘You’re never going to make it.’ I appreciated their honesty because I think when someone tells you something you may not like, you have to use that as fuel for motivation.” Mike Piazza – U.S. professional baseball player.

“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run…Never allow the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” Babe Ruth – U.S. professional baseball player.

“A baseball game is simply a nervous breakdown divided into nine innings.” Earl Wilson – U.S. professional baseball player.

“In baseball, there’s always the next day.” Ryne Sandberg - U.S. professional baseball player.

“Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday’s success or put its failures behind and start over again. That’s the way life is, with a new game every day, and that’s the way baseball is.” Bob Feller – U.S. professional baseball player.

“It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” Yogi Berra – U.S. professional baseball player, manager, coach. ?

“No matter how good you are, you’re going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you’re going to win one-third of your games. It’s the other third that makes the difference.” Tommy Lasorda - U.S. professional baseball player, manager.

“To succeed in baseball, as in life, you must make adjustments.” Ken Griffey Jr. – U.S. professional baseball player.

“Sandor Boatly had never guessed that, properly played, baseball consisted of mathematics, geometry, art, philosophy, ballet, and carnival, all intertwined like the mystical ribbons of color in a rainbow.” W.P. Kinsella - Canadian novelist, short story writer, known for his novel ‘Shoeless Joe’, which was adapted into the movie ‘Field of Dreams’.

“It is the life-affirming genius of baseball that the short can pummel the tall, the rotund can make fools of the sleek, and no matter how far down you find yourself in the bottom of the ninth you can always pull out a miracle.” Bill Vaughn – U.S. journalist, author.

“With baseball, it’s simple. There’s no mystery to what happens on the field because everything has a label – full count, earned run, perfect game – and there’s a certain amount of comfort in this terminology. There’s no room for confusion.” Jennifer E. Smith – U.S. author of young adult novels.

“The sheer quantity of brain power that hurled itself voluntarily and quixotically into the search for new baseball knowledge was either exhilarating or depressing, depending on how you felt about baseball. The same intellectual resources might have cured the common cold, or put a man on Pluto.” Michael Lewis – U.S. author, financial journalist, author of ‘Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game’.

“Men go to the ballpark with an assumed knowledge and interest, whereas women need to constantly demonstrate how much they know and care.” Stacey May Fowles – Canadian writer.

“A hot dog at the game beats roast beef at the Ritz.” Humphrey Bogart – U.S. actor.

“In playing ball, and in life, a person occasionally gets the opportunity to do something great. When that time comes, only two things matter: being prepared to seize the moment and having the courage to take your best swing.” Hank Aaron – U.S. professional baseball player.

“To a pitcher, a base hit is the perfect example of negative feedback.” Steve Hovley – U.S. professional baseball player.

“My pitching philosophy is simple – keep the ball way from the bat.” Satchel Paige – U.S. professional baseball player.

"Never save a pitcher for tomorrow. Tomorrow it may rain.” Leo Durocher – U.S. professional baseball player, manager, coach.

"I've come to the conclusion that the two most important things in life are good friends and a good bullpen.” Bob Lemon – U.S. professional baseball player.

“One of the beautiful things about baseball is that every once in a while you come into a situation where you want to, and where you have to, reach down and prove something.” Nolan Ryan – U.S. professional baseball player and executive.

“The only time I really try for a strikeout is when I’m in a jam. If the bases are loaded with none out, for example, then I’ll go for a strikeout. But most of the time, I try to throw to spots. I try to get them to pop up or ground out. On a strikeout, I might have to throw five or six pitches, sometimes more if there are foul-offs. That tires me. So I just try to get outs. That’s what counts – outs. You win with outs, not strikeouts.” Sandy Koufax – U.S. professional baseball player, at age 36 in 1972, became the youngest player ever elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

“Baseball is about talent, hard work, and strategy. But at the deepest level, it’s about love, integrity, and respect.” Pat Gillick – U.S. professional baseball player, manager, executive.

“No game in the world is as tidy and dramatically neat as baseball, with cause and effect, crime and punishment, motive and result, so cleanly defined.” Paul Gallico – U.S. novelist, short story writer, sports journalist.

“Life is like a baseball game. When you think a fastball is coming, you gotta be ready to hit the curve.” Anonymous.

“When life throws you a curveball, hit out of the park.” Shanka Jayasinha – U.S. investor, entrepreneur author.

“Ideally, the umpire should combine the integrity of a Supreme Court judge, the physical agility of an acrobat, the endurance of Job and the imperturbability of Buddha.” Time Magazine

“I've never questioned the integrity of an umpire. Their eyesight, yes.” Leo Durocher - U.S. professional baseball player, manager, coach.

“Baseball is like driving, it’s the one who gets home safely that counts.” Tommy Lasorda - U.S. professional baseball player, manager.

“If you don't know where you're going, you might wind up some place else.” Yogi Berra - U.S. professional baseball player, manager, coach. ?

“That’s one of the great gifts of this, the greatest of all games, baseball: it allows you, still, to lose yourself in a dream, to feel and remember a season of life when summer never seemed to die and the assault of cynicism hadn’t begun to batter optimism.” Mike Barnicle – U.S. print/broadcast journalist, social and political commentator, senior contributor on MSNBC's Morning Joe, also seen on NBC's Today Show with news/feature segments.

Beethoven can’t really be great because his picture isn’t on a bubble gum card.” Charles Schulz – U.S. cartoonist, creator of the comic strip Peanuts.

“Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he’s losing; nobody wants you to quit when you’re ahead.” Jackie Robinson – U.S. professional baseball player.

“All ballplayers should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill.” Babe Ruth - U.S. professional baseball player.

“Don’t try to be a hero. Try to be a winner.” George Brett – U.S. professional baseball player.

“There are three types of baseball players: those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who wonder what happened.” Tommy Lasorda - U.S. professional baseball player, manager.

“There are three things you can do in a baseball game. You can win, or you can lose, or it can rain.” Casey Stengel – U.S. professional baseball player, manager.

“Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good, too.” Yogi Berra - U.S. professional baseball player, manager, coach. ?