The baseball mania has run its course. It has no future as a professio — Baseball

"There are a lot of people coming into this country playing ball now who I think dont know how lucky they are to be able to play in a country like this, in the Major Leagues. We were in San Francisco once, and Willie Mays was getting ready to hit. And I said to him, "Willie, this is some game, isnt it? And Willie said to me, in this real high-pitched voice of his, "Smitty, if it wasnt for baseball, I would be picking cotton." And me, I grew up on a farm. And I knew I didnt want to be a farmer if I could be a ballplayer. I worked. I dont think some of these guys want to work very hard. If theyre home run hitters, thats all they want to concentrate on."

"Baseball is too much a business to be a sport and too much a sport to be a business."

"[B]aseball is a game of idling, a game of stories. Its an informal game, unlike football, which is paramilitary in nature. As Fred Moody once commented, NFL football doesnt consider the press to be a necessary evil. It considers the press to be an unnecessary evil."

"This is a game to be savored, not gulped. Theres time to discuss everything between pitches or between innings.."

"“In baseball, democracy shines its clearest,” he later wrote. “The only race that matters is the race to the bat. The creed is the rulebook; color merely something to distinguish one team’s uniform from another.”"

"Why, certainly Id like to have a fellow who hits a home run every time at bat, who strikes out every opposing batter when hes pitching and who is always thinking about two innings ahead. The only trouble is to get him to put down his cup of beer, come down out of the stands, and do those things."