The pitcher has got only a ball. I’ve got a bat. So the percentage in weapons is in my favor and I let the fellow with the ball do the fretting.

Didn’t come up here to read. Came up here to hit.

I never doubted my ability, but when you hear all your life you’re inferior, it makes you wonder if the other guys have something you’ve never seen before. If they do, I’m still looking for it.

The triple is the most exciting play in baseball. Home runs win a lot of games, but I never understood why fans are so obsessed with them.

The pitcher has got only a ball. I’ve got a bat. So the percentage in weapons is in my favor and I let the fellow with the ball do the fretting.

I don’t feel right unless I have a sport to play or at least a way to work up a sweat.

Guessing what the pitcher is going to throw is eighty percent of being a successful hitter. The other twenty percent is just execution.

It took me seventeen years to get three thousand hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course.

I’m hoping someday that some kid, black or white, will hit more home runs than myself. Whoever it is, I’d be pulling for him.

You can only milk a cow so long, then you’re left holding the pail.

My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.

I don’t see pitches down the middle anymore – not even in batting practice.

I looked for the same pitch my whole career, a breaking ball. All of the time. I never worried about the fastball. They couldn’t throw it past me, none of them.

On the field, blacks have been able to be super giants. But, once our playing days are over, this is the end of it and we go back to the back of the bus again.

I never smile when I have a bat in my hands. That’s when you’ve got to be serious. When I get out on the field, nothing’s a joke to me. I don’t feel like I should walk around with a smile on my face.