"A ball bat is a wondrous weapon." Source: Widely Attributed

"Baseball is a red-blooded sport for red-blooded men. It's no pink tea, and mollycoddles had better stay out. It's a struggle for supremacy, a survival of the fittest."

"Baseball was one-hundred percent of my life." Source: The Tumult and the Shouting (Grantland Rice, 1954)

"Every great batter works on the theory that the pitcher is more afraid of him than he is of the pitcher." Source: The Tiger Wore Spikes (John McCallum, 1956)

"He (Shoeless Joe Jackson) was the finest natural hitter in the history of the game."

"His (Walter Johnson) fastball looked about the size of a watermelon seed and it hissed at you as it passed."

"I had to fight all my life to survive. They were all against me, but I beat the bastards and left them in the ditch." Source: The Early Years (Harold Seymour, 1989)

"I have observed that baseball is not unlike a war, and when you come right down to it, we batters are the heavy artillery."

"I may have been fierce, but never low or underhand." Source: Baseball As I Have Known It (Fred Lieb, 1977)

"I'm coming down on the next pitch, Krauthead (Honus Wagner)." Source: Ken Burns' Baseball (1994)

"I never could stand losing. Second place didn't interest me. I had a fire in my belly."

"I regret to this day that I never went to college. I feel I should have been a doctor." Source: Widely Attributed

"Just speed, raw speed, blinding speed, too much speed (Walter Johnson's fastball)."

"Speed is a great asset; but it's greater when it's combined with quickness - and there's a big difference." Source: The Tumult and the Shouting (Grantland Rice, 1954)

"That boy (Mickey) Mantle is a good one."

"That god damned Dutchman (Honus Wagner) is the only man in the game I can't scare."

"The base paths belonged to me, the runner. The rules gave me the right. I always went into a bag full speed, feet first. I had sharp spikes on my shoes. If the baseman stood where he had no business to be and got hurt, that was his fault."

"The crowd makes the ballgame."

"The great American game should be an unrelenting war of nerves." Source: Giants of Baseball (Bill Gutman, 1975)

"The great trouble with baseball today is that most of the players are in the game for the money and that's it, not for the love of it, the excitement of it, the thrill of it." Source: Widely Attributed (1925)

"The way those clubs shift against Ted Williams, I can't understand how he can be so stupid not to accept the challenge to him and hit to left field." Source: The Sporting News (08/04/1948)

"To get along with me, don't increase my tension."

"When I began playing the game, baseball was about as gentlemanly as a kick in the crotch." Source: The Giants of the Polo Grounds (Noel Hynd, 1996)

"When I came to Detroit I was just a mild-mannered Sunday-school boy."

"You (Stan Musial) can still run and you still can hit. Drink a little wine before dinner and you'll play for years." Source: The National Pastime (Fall 1982)

"You've got to remember - I'm seventy-three." On why he would only hit .300 against today's pitchers.

"An outfield composed of (Ty) Cobb, (Tris) Speaker and (Babe) Ruth, even with Ruth, lacks the combined power of (Joe) DiMaggio, (Stan) Musial and (Ted) Williams." - Connie Mack

"(Ty) Cobb is a prick. But he sure can hit. God Almighty, that man can hit." - Babe Ruth

"(Ty) Cobb lived off the field as though he wished to live forever. He lived on the field as though it was his last day." - Branch Rickey

"(Ty) Cobb would have to play center field on my all time team. But where would that put (Tris) Speaker? In left. If I had them both, I would certainly play them that way." - John McGraw

"Every time I hear of this guy again, I wonder how he was possible." - Joe DiMaggio

"Few names have left a firmer imprint upon the stages of the history of American times than that of Ty Cobb. For a quarter of a century his aggressive exploits on the diamond, while inviting opposition as well as acclaim, brought high drama. This great athlete seems to have understood from early in his professional career that the competition of baseball, just as in war, defensive strategy never has produced ultimate victory." - General Douglas MacArthur

"He didn't outhit and he didn't outrun them, he out thought them." - Sam Crawford

"He threw more curves in money negotiations than a whole tribe of Arabs. He would hold out until hell froze over or until he got what he demanded." - Frank Navin

"He was still fighting the Civil War, and as far as he was concerned, we were all damn Yankees. But who knows, if he hadn't had that terrible persecution complex, he never would have been about the best ballplayer who ever lived." - Sam Crawford

"(Rogers) Hornsby could run like anything but not like this kid. (Ty) Cobb was the fastest I ever saw for being sensational on the bases." - Casey Stengel

"I have heard of managers who encourage players not to slide hard for fear they will get hurt and be lost from the lineup for a time. That is why you occasionally see a player go into second base on a double-play ball and not even bother to slide. I wonder, could Ty Cobb sit though plays like that and hold his lunch?" - Frank Robinson

"I never saw anyone like Ty Cobb. No one even close to him. He was the greatest all time ballplayer. That guy was superhuman, amazing." - Casey Stengel

"Let him sleep if he will. If you get him riled up, he will annihilate us." - Connie Mack

"The Babe was a great ballplayer, sure, but (Ty) Cobb was even greater. Babe (Ruth) could knock your brains out, but (Ty) Cobb would drive you crazy." - Tris Speaker

"The greatness of Ty Cobb was something that had to be seen, and to see him was to remember him forever." - George Sisler

"They can talk about Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby and Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio and Stan Musial and all the rest, but I'm sure not one of them could hold cards and spades to (Ted) Williams in his sheer knowledge of hitting. He studied hitting the way a broker studies the stock market, and could spot at a glance mistakes that others couldn't see in a week." - Carl Yastrzemski

"What a hell of a league this is. I hit .387, .408, and .395 the last three years and I ain't won nothin' yet!" - 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson talking with Ty Cobb

"When he's at bat you can hear him gritting his teeth." - Rebel Oaks

"When I get the record, all it will make me is the player with the most hits. I'm also the player with the most at bats and the most outs. I never said I was a greater player than (Ty) Cobb." - Pete Rose