“It breaks your heart.  It is designed to break your heart.  The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.  You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.

“The Green Fields of the Mind” by A. Bartlett Giamatti

While channel surfing past the opening telecast of Monday Night Football, my thoughts naturally turn to the winding down of the baseball season. This year I picked up a new book by Garrett Park, Maryland author Paul Dickson entitled Baseball’s Greatest Quotations . Here are some samples to whet the appetite:

Choo-Choo Coleman would…give you the sign and then look down to see what it was. – Roger Craig quoted in “Bad Beyond Belief”

Blind people come to the park just to listen to him pitch. – Reggie Jackson commenting on Tom Seaver.

Fans don’t boo nobodies. – Reggie Jackson

Out of what? A thousand? – Mickey Rivers on hearing Reggie Jackson brag about having an IQ of 160

I cussed him out in Spanish and he threw me out in English – Lou Piniella as a Yankee, on an argument he had with umpire Armando Rodriguez

Hating the Yankees is as American as pizza pie, unwed mothers, and cheating on your income tax – Mike Royko

Don’t quit until every base is uphill – Babe Ruth

The only good thing about playing in Cleveland is you don’t have to make road trips there – Richie Scheinblum

But they had a Bob Uecker Day Off for me once in Philly – Bob Uecker on his lack of recognition

I made a major contribution to the Cardinals’ pennant drive in 1964.  I got hepatitis. – Bob Uecker

The average age in Sun City, Arizona, is deceased – Bob Uecker

Good pitching always stops good hitting and vice versa – Bob Veale

Don’t know, they were wearing a bag over their head – Yogi Berra (you knew I had to include at least one) when, after seeing his first streaker, he was asked if the person was male or female.

A fun read. 

More to come…

DJB