“It’s our game; that’s the chief fact in connection with it: America’s game; it has the snap, go, fling of the American atmosphere; it belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly as our Constitution’s laws; is just as important in the sum total of our historic life.” — Walt Whitman

“Nothing in our daily life offers more of the comfort of continuity, the generational connection of belonging to a vast and complicated American family, the powerful sense of home, the freedom from time’s constraints, and the great gift of accumulated memory than does our National Pastime.” — Ken Burns

“Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.” — Ted Williams

“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” — Rogers Hornsby

“A hot dog at the ballgame beats roast beef at the Ritz.” — Humphrey Bogart

“The game has a cleanness. If you do a good job, the numbers say so. You don’t have to ask anyone or play politics. You don’t have to wait for reviews.” — Sandy Koufax

“I believe in the Rip Van Winkle Theory: that a man from 1910 must be able to wake up after being asleep for seventy years, walk into a ballpark and understand baseball perfectly.” — Bowie Kuhn, Commissioner of Baseball

“You should enter a ballpark the way you enter a church.” — Bill Lee

“No matter how good you are, you’re going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are, you’re going to win one-third of your games. It’s the other third that makes the difference.” — Tommy Lasorda

“I have observed that baseball is not unlike war, and when you get right down to it, we batters are the heavy artillery.” — Ty Cobb

“Baseball is dull only to dull minds.” — Red Smith, columnist