People From Georgia U S State

"The greatest ballplayer of all time? ... I pick the Detroit man because he is, in my judgement, the most expert man in his profession and is able to respond better than any other ballplayer, to any demand made on him. I pick him because he plays ball with his whole anatomy — his head, his arms, his hands, his legs, his feet — and because he plays ball all the time for all that is in him. ... he loves the game. I have never seen a man who had his heart more centered in a sport than Cobb has when he’s playing. There never was a really good ball player who didn't think more of the game than he did of his salary or the applause of fans. ... I believe Cobb would continue to play ball if he were charged something for the privilege, and if the only spectator were the groundskeeper."

"The cruelty of Cobb's style fascinated the multitudes, but it also alienated them. He played in a climate of hostility, friendless by choice in a violent world he populated with enemies ... He was the strangest of all our national sports idols. But not even his disagreeable character could destroy the image of his greatness as a ballplayer. Ty Cobb was the best. That seemed to be all he wanted."

"He demeaned Ruth's talent whenever he got the chance, and from the dugout called him "Nigger." But when the two stars, whom sportswriters called the supermen of baseball, met in what was billed as a grudge series in 1921, Ruth homered in every game. Cobb hit only one. The New York Times reported that Ruth has stolen all of Cobb's thunder. Yankee manager Miller Huggins admitted that real students of the game might prefer Ty Cobb's classic brand of baseball, but Babe Ruth appealed to everybody. They all flocked to him, he said, because nowadays the American fan likes the fellow who carries the wallop."

"When he left home at 17 to play in the minors in Alabama and Tennessee, his father warned him: "Don't come home a failure." "That admonition," Cobb recalled, "put more determination in me than he ever knew. My overwhelming need was to prove myself as a man.""

"Ty was an intellectual giant. He was the most fascinating personality I ever met in baseball. To him, a ball game wasn't a mere athletic contest. It was a knock-'em-down, crush-'em, relentless war. He was their enemy, and if they got in his way he ran right over them."

"Of course, word of the scrap had gotten around to both the Washington and Detroit players who automatically made a ring around the two. Both were pretty good size men, possibly around 185, with Evans being a little stockier built while Ty was more the wiry, rangy type. it was the bloodiest fight I ever saw in baseball. Ty was a bit too fast for Evans. One of Cobbs' blows split Evans' left eyebrow, and another literally parted the flesh like a jagged dull knife would have done, on Evans' right cheekbone. Ty eventually knocked Evans down, got on top of him and was banging his head on the hard surface. It was at this time that a burly groundkeeper for the Washington club, who looked like he would tip the scale at about 230 pounds and probably could have bested either Ty or Billy, reached down and pulled Ty off of Billy and very authoritatively told them, "The fight is over, boys.""

"When I played ball, I didn't play for fun. To me it wasn't parchesi played under parchesi rules. Baseball is a red-blooded sport for red-blooded men. It's no pink tea, and mollycoddles had better stay out. It's a contest and everything that implies, a struggle for supremacy, a survival of the fittest. Every man in the game, from the minors on up, is not only fighting against the other side, but he's trying to hold onto his own job against those on his own bench who'd love to take it away. Why deny this? Why minimize it? Why not boldly admit it? Many a writer has said that I was "unfair." Well, that's not my understanding of the word. When my toes were stepped on, I stepped right back."

"Most collisions out on the fields are needless. Keep your ears open while you're concentrating on running toward the ball and stick to the tested formula, boys. When you shout "I'll take it!" or "I've got it!" shout it loudly and clearly. Give that signal the instant you feel the play belongs to you and not your team-mate. After that, the responsibility for the catch is yours. If you call for it, you have the confidence to play the ball, knowing you are on your own and safe from injury. The collision hazard is eliminated almost entirely."

"I can't honestly say that I appreciate the way in which he changed baseball — from a game of science to an extension of his powerful slugging — but he was the most natural and unaffected man I ever knew. No one ever loved life more. No one ever inspired more youngsters. I have reverence for his marvelous ability . I look forward to meeting him again some day."

"On the diamond, I had been rough on Babe. I'd never taken my spurs out of his hide and one day he'd come looking for me in the Detroit clubhouse with fistic mayhem in mind. We'd won and lost duels to each other way back since 1915, when Babe had been a rookie pitcher with Bill Carrigan's Boston Red Sox. To add heat to the situation, some press association or other was always holding a poll to pick between Ruth and Cobb as the all-time star player."

"As a base-runner, I had some pretty radical ideas. Some said I was crazy to take such chances; others were beginning to suspect that maybe I had something. My counter to Criger's challenge had to be something unusual. And when we opened the first Boston series of '08, I watched the Young-Criger battery carefully before coming to the plate. Then I told Criger, "I'm going to steal every base on you today." … On four straight Young pitches, beginning with my single, I'd completed a tour of Boston bases. Our man at bat hadn't taken his club off his shoulder while I was coming around. Criger had been deflated in the worst possible way that can happen to a catcher — I'd told him exactly what I intended to do, and still gotten away with it."

"A ball bat is a wondrous weapon."

"I've been called one of the hardest bargainers who ever held out, and I'm proud of it."

"Joe's swing was purely natural, he was the perfect hitter. He batted against spitballs, shineballs, emeryballs and all the other trick deliveries. He never figured anything out or studied anything with the same scientific approach I gave it. He just swung. If he'd ever had any knowledge of batting, his average would have been phenomenal. … he seemed content to just punch the ball, and I can still see those line drives whistling to the far precincts. Joe Jackson hit the ball harder than any man ever to play baseball."

"I think if I had my life to live over again, I'd do things a little different. I was aggressive, perhaps too aggressive. Maybe I went too far. I always had to be right in any argument I was in, I always had to be first in everything. I do indeed think I would have done some things different. And if I had I believe I would have had more friends."

"Williams is one batter I thought would break my lifetime batting average of .367. If he'd learned to hit to left, Ted would have broken every record in the book."

"Why not? Certainly it is okay for them to play. I see no reason in the world why we shouldn't compete with colored athletes as long as they conduct themselves with politeness and gentility. Let me say also that no white man has the right to be less of a gentleman than a colored man. In my book that goes not only for baseball but in all walks of life."

"I feel that anything I could say in the way of eulogizing Hans would not be one-hundredth as much as he deserves, so I will just say my heart is with him tonight in wishing him three or four more score of pleasant years and that he will lead them all just as long as he wishes. I will be drinking a toast to the greatest ball player ever on his forty-first birthday, the night of February 24, away down here in Georgia."

"Almost all of the social tragedies occurring around the world today are caused by ignoring the basic biological laws of nature ... The quicker we humans learn that saving open space and wildlife is critical to our welfare and quality of life, maybe we'll start thinking of doing something about it."

"The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans. Our challenge for the future is that we realize we are very much a part of the earth's ecosystem, and we must learn to respect and live according to the basic biological laws of nature."

"I didn't know baseball from ping pong. But the point was that he had broken in. I grew inches that day. I puffed out my chest."

"Jackie Robinson is the best I've seen. Robinson is the perfect blend of ball player. He has creativeness [sic] and imagination. Every move he makes from the minute he steps onto the field is designed to beat the other club. He's constantly asking himself, at bat or on the bases, "what can I do to beat the other guy?" That's the kind of ball player that wins pennants."

"For me as a kid, growing up minutes from Ebbets Field, the Dodgers weren't a team-they were a way of life. Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese, Don Newcombe, Duke Snider, and Jackie Robinson were not only our heroes; they were part of our family."

"You can hate a man for many reasons, his color isn't one of them."

"When things look dark, void, and altogether hopeless to the colored youth of America..., when they need an inspiring thought that should urge them onward to the road of achievement despite forbidding obstacles, they will only need to read of and reflect upon the remarkable career of Jackie Robinson."

"Today we must balance the tears of sorrow with the tears of joy. Mix the bitter with the sweet in death and life. Jackie as a figure in history was a rock in the water, creating concentric circles and ripples of new possibility. He was medicine. He was immunized by God from catching the diseases that he fought. The Lord's arms of protection enabled him to go through dangers seen and unseen, and he had the capacity to wear glory with grace. Jackie's body was a temple of God. An instrument of peace. We would watch him disappear into nothingness and stand back as spectators, and watch the suffering from afar. The mercy of God intercepted this process Tuesday and permitted him to steal away home, where referees are out of place, and only the supreme judge of the universe speaks...Jackie, as a figure in history, was a rock in the water, hitting concentric circles and ripples of new possibility...He didn't integrate baseball for himself. He infiltrated baseball for all of us, seeking and looking for more oxygen for black survival, and looking for new possibility. His feet on the baseball diamond made it more than a sport, a narrative of achievement more than a game. For many of us ... it was a gift of new expectations...He helped us to ascend from misery, to hope, on the muscles of his arms and the meaning of his life."

"I do not care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a zebra. I'm the manager of this team, and I say he plays. What's more, I say he can make us all rich. And if any of you cannot use the money, I will see that you are all traded."

"This is a particularly good year to campaign against the evils of bigotry, prejudice, and race hatred because we have witnessed the defeat of enemies who tried to found a mastery of the world upon such cruel and fallacious policy."

"My dear Mr. President: I was sitting in the audience at the Summit Meeting of Negro Leaders yesterday when you said we must have patience. On hearing you say this, I felt like standing up and saying, "Oh no! Not again. " I respectfully remind you sir, that we have been the most patient of all people. When you said we must have self-respect, I wondered how we could have self-respect and remain patient considering the treatment accorded us through the years. 17 million Negroes cannot do as you suggest and wait for the hearts of men to change. We want to enjoy now the rights that we feel we are entitled to as Americans. This we cannot do unless we pursue aggressively goals which all other Americans achieved over 150 years ago. As the chief executive of our nation, I respectfully suggest that you unwittingly crush the spirit of freedom in Negroes by constantly urging forbearance and give hope to those pro-segregation leaders like Governor Faubus who would take from us even those freedoms we now enjoy. Your own experience with Governor Faubus is proof enough that forbearance and not eventual integration is the goal the pro-segregation leaders seek. In my view, an unequivocal statement backed up by action such as you demonstrated you could take last fall in dealing with Governor Faubus if it became necessary, would let it be known that America is determined to provide -- in the near future for Negroes -- the freedoms we are entitled to under the constitution, Respectfully yours, Jackie Robinson"

"I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag. I know that I am a black man in a white world."

"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."

"The role of the manager is overrated, anyhow. Look at Stengel. When he was with the Yankees, loaded with material, he was a winner. When he moved over to the Mets, he finished last. They voted Casey the greatest living manager. That's a lot of bull—a joke. The only thing a manager has to do is relate to the players. Who did Casey ever relate to? Nobody but himself."

"The kid was great. He was the difference. The Yankees certainly didn't miss Joe DiMaggio out there in center field today—and won't as long as that guy's around."

"I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being. I am not ashamed of my dark skin. You and every other white American should understand that we believe our color is an asset. Your dislike of my aggressiveness has no effect on me. I'm after something much more important than your favor or disfavor. You should at least respect me as a man who stands up for what he believes in. I am not an . I am in this fight to stay."

"No other player on this club with the possible exception of Bruce Edwards has done more to put the Dodgers up in the race than Robinson has. He is everything Branch Rickey said he was when he came up from Montreal."

"Whenever I hear a campaign talk about a need to energize the base, that's a campaign that's going down the toilet. It's a pretty good indication that they're not eating up any territory, they can't get anybody in the center to support them, they're getting shelled back into their own bunker."

"Washington is a dirty diaper. It's time for a change."

"Who cares? Sometimes you need rebirth. (On the destruction of America)"

"[Hollywood] hates America."

"Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic."

"[On Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama] If she gave him one of her cojones, they'd both have two."

"You can call the dogs in, wet the fire, and leave the house. The hunt's over."

"John McCain, if you liked the last eight, you are going to love the next four."

"Let me buy a [security] pass … so that they can scan me and and search me and measure my penis, then let me get on the plane."

"Stay focused. Talk about things that’ll matter to the people, you know? It’s the economy, stupid."

"James Carville was one person I was certain I’d dislike when I sat down to interview him in the early spring of 1996. Carville was a famous partisan. He ran Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign and shamelessly shilled for the Democratic Party. Watching him from afar, Carville struck me as a transparent fraud. What I discovered in talking to him was that James Carville was indeed a fraud, but openly so, in the most honest and genuine way. Over time, Carville wound up one of my favorite people in the world, one of the few friends I’ve gone to repeatedly for serious life advice. I haven’t taken a new job in twenty years without calling him first. James Carville is a genuinely wise man. What a shock that was to discover. Life is full of happy surprises like that, thank God. They more than compensate for the rest."

"Sign on the wall in the 1992 Clinton campaign headquarters : The economy, stupid."

"Why does a dog lick his dick? Because he can. Why does Congress spend money like that? Because it can."

"When your opponent is drowning, throw the son of a bitch an anvil."

"At the beginning of the Clinton administration in the early 1990s, adviser James Carville was stunned at the power the bond market had over the government. If he came back, Carville said: I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody."