1. “For the past two weeks, you have been reading about a bad break. Yet today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”
2. “I might have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for.”
3. “The ballplayer who loses his head, who can’t keep his cool, is worse than no ballplayer at all.”
4. “There is no room in baseball for discrimination. It is our national pastime and a game for all.”
5. “It’s a pretty big shadow—Babe Ruth’s—it gives me lots of room to spread myself.”
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6. “The Babe is one fellow, and I’m another and I could never be exactly like him. I don’t try, I just go on as I am in my own right.”
7. “I love to win, but I love to lose almost as much. I love the thrill of victory, and I also love the challenge of defeat.”
8. “You don’t get the breaks unless you play with the team instead of against it.”
9. “We were mighty short on infielders in those days.”
10. “I have always been a team man, and I never had lost sight of the welfare of the Yankees, and the debt I owe to baseball, and to the fans.”
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11. “I’m not a headline guy. I know that as long as I was following Ruth to the plate, I could have stood on my head and no one would have known the difference.”
12. “What are you going to do? Admit to yourself that the pitchers have you on the point of surrender? You can’t do that. You must make yourself think that the pitchers are just as good as they always have been or just as bad.”
13. “I have been in ballparks for 17 years, and I have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn’t consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day?”
14. “When you look around, wouldn’t you consider it a privilege to associate yourself with such fine-looking men as they’re standing in uniform in this ballpark today? Sure, I’m lucky.”
15. “I am out, but not down. I believe I will be back in the lineup in three weeks. I am doing a lot of running and getting myself into shape.”
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16. “You have to get knocked down to realize how people really feel about you. I’ve realized that more than ever lately.”
17. “I am going through a period of readjustment. It means working hard, listening, watching, keeping up courage, and rebuilding legs and determination.”
18. “I am a slave to baseball and only because I really love the game, hate to think of taking even one day away when we are playing.”
19. “It’s taken me three years to get into this game. It’s going to take more than a crack on the head to get me out.”
20. “When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body—it’s a blessing.”
21. “No, only that one occasion, when I had the lumbago, was I near quitting. And I have had busted fingers and toes, pains and aches just as all other men have them. I determined to go on and on, and I did. Until the day came.”
22. “Irrespective of any other players on our club, I am the man to whom the team looks as a pacesetter. Every year I am told I am the hitter who must lead the Yankees to the pennant. That suits me fine.”
23. “Who wouldn’t consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball’s greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I’m lucky.”
24. “My so-called collapse was my own fault. I forgot to look at the calendar. I spent the off-season riding in a car and sitting in a boat. I rode to get a newspaper two blocks away. I should have been jogging, and should have come into training camp with my legs fit for the task.”
25. “When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter—that’s something.”
26. “The enjoyment of a cigar after a hard week gives me a feeling of well-being and relaxation that a Valium could not match. While there may be a more ideal form of stress reduction, I haven’t yet discovered anything else as effective and easy.”
27. “When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed—that’s the finest I know.”
28. “In the beginning, I used to make one terrible play a game. Then I got so I’d make one a week and finally, I’d pull a bad one about once a month. Now, I’m trying to keep it down to one a season.”
29. “The other day, I was on my way to the car. It was hailing, the streets were slippery and I was having a tough time of it. I came to a corner and started to slip. But before I could fall, four people jumped out of nowhere to help me. When I thanked them, they all said they knew about my illness and had been keeping an eye on me.”
30. “Talk about it? Sure. Why not? It’s no disgrace. The day comes to all ballplayers. But please don’t turn on the tremolo, and do an obituary.”