Catholics From The United States

"Speech is an essential mechanism of democracy, for it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people. [...] The right of citizens to inquire, to hear, to speak, and to use information to reach consensus is a precondition to enlightened self-government and a necessary means to protect it. [...] By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. The Government may not by these means deprive the public of the right and privilege to determine for itself what speech and speakers are worthy of consideration. The First Amendment protects speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each."

"[T]his Court now concludes that independent [political] expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption."

"I knew Earl Warren very well, on a somewhat professional basis. Professional, as in I was a nine-year-old page boy and he was the Governor. We knew his children and played in the Governor's Mansion and so forth. I have a letter I've given to the Supreme Court Historical Society, in which he wrote and said, "You're going to go very far in government." I'm very proud of the fact that I knew well someone who later became the Chief Justice of the United States."

"The Constitution doesn't belong to a bunch of judges and lawyers. It belongs to you."

"When a juvenile offender commits a heinous crime, the State can exact forfeiture of some of the most basic liberties, but the State cannot extinguish his life and his potential to attain a mature understanding of his own humanity."

"It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty."

"The instant case involves liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions.... Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today.... As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom."

"It's time for Dodger baseball!"

"Hi, everybody, and a very pleasant good (afternoon/evening) to you, wherever you may be."

""High (drive/fly ball) into (left/center/etc.) field, and deep. Back goes (fielder's name), a-way back, it's gone!" (Or "… to the [warning] track, to the [fence/wall], gone!")"

"The ability to throw 100 mph cannot be taught, cannot be learned, it can only be God-given."

"It's a mere moment in a man's life between the All-Star Game and an old timer's game."

"It's a passing of a great American tradition. It is sad. I really and truly feel that. It will leave a vast window, to use a Washington word, where people will not get Major League Baseball and I think that's a tragedy."

"We have reached the bottom of the 9th inning, and now it is happening, what we normally experience at any ballpark when a visiting pitcher is so close to greatness, even the hometown fans come to root for him. He has come too far; he has journeyed too long to drop it."

"And, (relief pitcher Dennis Eckersley) walked (pinch-hitter Mike Davis) … and look who's comin' up!"

"Three times in his sensational career has Sandy Koufax walked out to the mound to pitch a fateful ninth where he turned in a no-hitter. But tonight, September the ninth, nineteen hundred and sixty-five, he made the toughest walk of his career, I'm sure, because through eight innings he has pitched a perfect game. He has struck out eleven, he has retired twenty-four consecutive batters, and the first man he will look at is catcher Chris Krug, big right-hand hitter, flied to second, grounded to short. Dick Tracewski is now at second base and Koufax ready and delivers: curveball for a strike."

"A little roller up along first; behind the bag! It gets through Buckner! Here comes Knight and the Mets win it!"

"(Roberto) Clemente could field the ball in New York and throw out a guy in Pennsylvania."

"You know, friends, so many people have wished me congratulations on a 67-year career in baseball, and they've wished me a wonderful retirement with my family, and now, all I can do is tell you what I wish for you. May God give you, for every storm, a rainbow; for every tear, a smile; for every care, a promise; and a blessing in each trial. For every problem life seems, a faithful friend to share; for every sigh, a sweet song, and an answer for each prayer. You and I have been friends for a long time, but I know, in my heart, I've always needed you more than you've ever needed me, and I'll miss our time together more than I can say. But, you know what, there will be a new day, and, eventually, a new year, and when the upcoming winter gives way to spring, ooh, rest assured, once again, it will be time for Dodger baseball. So, this is Vin Scully wishing you a pleasant good afternoon, wherever you may be."

"Statistics are used much like a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination."

"Scully is so well-regarded for his mastery of the English language and his enviable demeanor that the "voice of the Dodgers" has become the "voice of the World Series" year after year for the CBS Radio Network. In 1976, Dodger fans voted Scully the "most memorable personality" in Los Angeles Dodger history."

"As the voice of the Dodgers for over 40 years, Vin Scully is recognized as one of the truly great baseball announcers. To baseball fans, including the original Brooklyn Dodgers diehards, Vin is beloved as much as the game of baseball itself."

"The game of baseball has a handful of signature sounds. You hear the crack of the bat. You got the crowd singing in the seventh inning stretch. And you've got the voice of Vin Scully."

"Vin Scully has the most musical voice in baseball. He doesn't have the clipped, old-time-radio cadence of most broadcasters who date back to the '50s and beyond. Although his timbre is thin, everything is smooth and rounded. The words slide into each other. He has flow. The melody rises and falls on the tide of the game. You can almost hum along to Vin Scully. He's often referred to as baseball's poet laureate, and those who don't get him parody him by quoting Emerson or spouting flowery language. But even though he will occasionally toss off some verse (he's likely to find the lyrics of an old show tune more apt) or call a cheap base hit "a humble thing, but thine own," the real metaphor for Vin Scully isn't poetry, or even music: It's painting. Other radio announcers can tell you what's happening on the field, and you can imagine it. With Vin Scully, you can see it. His command of the language and the game is so masterful that he always has just the right words to describe what's going on. He paints you a picture."

"Ten years to the day after he signed his first Yankee contract, calling for $10,000, Babe Ruth today nonchalantly rejected an offer of $75,000, the salary paid the president of the United States.✱"

"You know how Ruth hits those home runs around the circuit, and I doubt if his total would be reduced by as many as three or four. Ruth hits them into the street in Cleveland, where there is a 45-foot screen in right field. He hits them out of the park in Detroit, St. Louis and Philadelphia. Screens would not bother him but would cut down the number of home-run hitters. At present, players who have no right to be swinging for homers are using the Ruth type of hitting. I think it's time to step in and do something to cut down the mania. The public wants the lively ball, with the speed it has brought into baseball, but it doesn't want a flock of cheap home runs. And it would appreciate a return of some of the older sort of hitting. By all means let us not do anything to really hamper a man like Ruth."

"Ruth can hit the ball farther than anyone I ever saw. There has never been anyone like him and I don't think there ever will be. I hope he lives to hit one-hundred homers in a season. I wish him all the luck in the world. He has everybody else hopelessly outclassed, including myself."

"He had real good stuff. I mean real good. His fast ball took off and his curve was quick. And he could get the ball over. He was always around the plate. It was funny, though. He had a cute trick of sticking out his tongue on a curve ball. But even though you knew it was coming, you had trouble hitting it. I caught him once in California in an exhibition game one fall. He still had something left. I remember we beat the other team managed by Ty Cobb, 8-7, and Ty sure hated to lose."

"He was going on my show. I introduce him and this big, garrulous guy – he can’t say a word. Mute. I read his script on air and now I’m Ruth as Babe tries to compose himself, smoking and leaning against the wall. You know something? We pull it off. I sign off and Babe hasn’t made a sound."

"Yesterday's home runs don't win today's games"

"There's been so many lovely things said about me, and I'm glad that I've had the opportunity to thank everybody. Thank you."

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

"Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. You know how bad my voice sounds. Well, it feels just as bad. You know this baseball game of ours comes up from the youth. That means the boys. And after you've been a boy, and grow up to know how to play ball, then you come to the boys you see representing themselves today in our national pastime."

"I copied Jackson's style because I thought he was the greatest hitter I had ever seen, the greatest natural hitter I ever saw. He's the guy who made me a hitter."

"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."

"Every strike brings me closer to the next home run."

"I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball. In boxing, your fist usually stops when you hit a man, but its possible to hit so hard that your fist doesn't stop. I try to follow through in the same way. The harder you grip the bat, the more you can swing it through the ball, and the farther the ball will go. I swing big, with everything I've got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can."

"If I'd just tried for them dinky singles I could've batted around six hundred!"

"Keed, I'll give you a little bit of advice. Don't believe anything they write about you, good or bad. Two, get the dough while the getting is good, but don't break your heart trying to get it. And don't pick up too many checks!"

"I only have one superstition: I make sure to touch all the bases when I hit a home run."

"If it wasn't for baseball, I'd be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery. I have the same violent temper my father and older brother had. Both died of injuries from street fights in Baltimore, fights begun by flare-ups of their tempers."

"A ballplayer should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill."

"Yes, he's a prick, but he sure can hit. God Almighty, that man can hit!"

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

"Leo never was much of a hitter. I tried to help him once. I suggested that he become a switch-hitter and that if he did, his average would jump up to .400. "Two hundred right-handed and two hundred left," I said."

"We had a lot of fun with Casey all through the Series. There never was anything abusive about him. We rode him just to hear his clownish comebacks. I know I kidded him plenty. And when he won the 1 to 0 game, he ran around the bases with his thumb to his nose and his hand pointed to the Yankee bench. I think it was meant for me in particular as he tried to show me he, too, knew how to hit home runs. Ruppert didn't like it and later said it was undignified. But we didn't mind Casey having his fun."

"I didn't mean to hit the umpire with the dirt, but I did mean to hit that bastard in the stands."

"It was at St. Mary’s that I met and learned to love the greatest man I’ve ever known. His name was Brother Matthias. He was the father I needed. He taught me to read and write — and he taught me the difference between right and wrong."

"I think my mother hated me."

"I was a bad kid. I say this without pride but with a feeling that it is better to say it. I live with one great hope: to help kids who now stand where I stood as a boy. If what I have to say here helps even one of them avoid some of my own mistakes, or take heart from such triumphs as I have had, this book will serve its purpose."