The way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and then pick it up.

The nice thing is that when people come up to me, it’s the football they remember, not all the other rubbish.

You’re not going to see my sense of humor on the football field. That’s not a place for me to joke around.

I used to tease Joe Louis by reminding him that I was the greatest of all time. But Joe Louis was the greatest heavyweight fighter ever.

I was saluted by Alex Ferguson when I was subbed and that made me very happy.

To be honest, there are no problems between me and Messi. People have their own opinions about who they think is the better player. It is what it is, but there is no rivalry beyond games and what happens on the pitch.

A lot of guys are able to separate how they act off the court versus how they act on the court.

I still enjoy watching a batter successfully cross home plate, but nothing thrills me more than seeing the Holy Spirit at work in hearts as the Gospel is carried into stadiums, across the airwaves, and around the world.

I hope the fans have enjoyed listening as much as I’ve enjoyed doing the games. I don’t ever go to the park where I don’t have a good day. I don’t like losing. But I don’t think I ever go to the park where I have a bad day. I don’t think once.

When I looked at the third base coach, he turned his back on me.

That’s what you live for as a sportsman. You have to put up a fight.

The biggest thrill a ballplayer can have is when your son takes after you. That happened when my Bobby was in his championship Little League game. He really showed me something. Struck out three times. Made an error that lost the game. Parents were throwing things at our car and swearing at us as we drove off. Gosh, I was proud.

In 1962 I was named Minor League Player of the Year. It was my second season in the bigs.

I have two Golden Boot awards at home. It would be nice to win another, but I wouldn’t mind it if I didn’t.

If I’d just tried for them dinky singles I could’ve batted around .600.

I felt unhappy and trapped. If I left baseball, where could I go, what could I do to earn enough money to help my mother and to marry Rachel? The solution to my problem was only days away in the hands of a tough, shrewd, courageous man called Branch Rickey, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Losing is not an option in Kolkata. It’s not easy, a lot of players even quit.

I was a very shy character, always feeling uncomfortable because everybody was stronger than I, and always afraid I would look like a sissy. Everybody else played baseball; everybody else did all kinds of athletic things.

Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.

Before broadcasting for 50-some years, I did TV, played 10 years in the big leagues, won a world championship – and played a big part in that, too, letting the Cardinals inject me with hepatitis. Takes a big man to do that.

I’m not going to fight because I mean too much to our team, and I can’t afford to be suspended for a game or do something stupid to get me kicked out of a playoff game.

It would make everything I worked for meaningless if baseball is integrated but political parties were segregated.

Reading isn’t good for a ballplayer. Not good for his eyes. If my eyes went bad even a little bit I couldn’t hit home runs. So I gave up reading.

You must keep raising this game to higher and higher levels, as on the pool table – mastering eventually the psychological angles. Your playing is a pleasure, all the way to the end, to death, when the game is over.

The old Dodgers were something special, but of my teammates overall, there was nobody like Pee Wee Reese for me.

All I can tell them is pick a good one and sock it. I get back to the dugout and they ask me what it was I hit and I tell them I don’t know except it looked good.

There’s different kinds of laughs. It’s like a baseball lineup: this guy’s your power hitter, this guy gets on base, this guy works out walks. If everybody does their job, we’re gonna win.

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

People have asked me a lot of times, because I didn’t hit a lot, how long a dozen bats would last me. Depending on the weight and model I was using at that time – I would say eight to 10 cookouts.

One rule that will work if it is used everywhere, is that when you have a free-kick, the referee puts the mark on the floor to make sure the defenders keep their distance.

Obviously everybody, if you’re playing in the league, you’ve got to have somewhat of an ego about how you play the game.

The way I figured it, I was even with baseball and baseball with me. The game had done much for me, and I had done much for it.

I played football for a team called the East Dragons on the east side of town. We only had six regular season games. And six games I played tail back and I had 18 touchdowns in six games. That’s when I knew I had some athletic ability.

Rule number one is: Beat your team-mate.

To me, football is so much about mental toughness, it’s digging deep, it’s doing whatever you need to do to help a team win and that comes in a lot of shapes and forms.

Some people take defeat and losses a certain way. You see how some fighters take losses.

I try to do the fancy things out there by going with both hands, making crossover moves, and having a certain creativity and flair to my game.

We have a great group of guys that really sacrifice every night, care about each other, and try to play the right away.

To make America the greatest is my goal, so I beat the Russian and I beat the Pole. And for the U.S.A. won the medal of gold. The Greeks said, ‚You’re better than the Cassius of old.‘

You throw batting practice, you warm up pitchers, you sit and cheer. You do whatever you have to do to stay on the team.

No one knows what to say in the loser’s locker room.

If it wasn’t for baseball, I’d be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery.

The game of golf would lose a great deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green.

I hit a grand slam off Ron Herbel and when his manager Herman Franks came out to get him, he was bringing Herbel’s suitcase.

We all started playing football against our best friends, and I can’t remember a moment where, because it was my best friend, I did not want to win against him.

I’m proud to play for Real Madrid because I have fun; when you no longer have fun it’s a sign that it’s time to leave. For now though, I’m happy here at the greatest club in the world.

The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.

I’ve always been an unselfish guy, and that’s the only way I know how to play on the court and I try to play to the maximum of my ability – not only for myself but for my teammates.

Talking to a player helps, but in our sport the majority of learning happens from watching another player. You pick up things like being punctual, being nice to everyone, making sure you give your 100 per cent even in training.

Even the best and biggest teams in the world do not reach finals of tournaments.

If you’re a quarterback, you want everything on your shoulders. You want to be the one to make the decisions.

I had been playing for a while, and I asked Louisville Slugger to send me a dozen flame treated bats. But when I got it, I realized they had sent me a box of ashes.

Pop flies, in a sense, are just a diversion for a second baseman. Grounders are his stock trade.

Poets are like baseball pitchers. Both have their moments. The intervals are the tough things.

To all the positions, I just bring the determination to win. Me being an unselfish player, I think that can carry on to my teammates. When you have one of the best players on the court being unselfish, I think that transfers to the other players.

Where would I be without baseball? Who am I without baseball?

Ali’s got a left, Ali’s got a right – when he knocks you down, you’ll sleep for the night; and when you lie on the floor and the ref counts to ten, hope and pray that you never meet me again.

The black press, some liberal sportswriters, and even a few politicians were banging away at those Jim Crow barriers in baseball. I never expected the walls to come tumbling down in my lifetime.

When we played softball, I’d steal second base, feel guilty and go back.

Once you get on the playing field it’s not about whether you’re liked or not liked. All that matters is to play at a high level and do whatever it takes to help your team win. That’s what it’s about.

Any teammate of mine that had a kid and a boy that was capable of playing baseball, I think I set a terrific example of ‚Don’t do this‘ and ‚Don’t do that.‘ And that’s one of the things that I’m most proud of.