Joe Posnanski > Quotes

“In our beautiful memory We were all handsome. We all could sing. We all had the heart Of the prettiest girl in town. And we all hit .300.”
― Joe Posnanski, The Soul of Baseball

“Son, in this life, you don’t ever walk by a red dress.”
― Joe Posnanski, The Soul of Baseball

“I learned how to play the game from Buck O’Neil,” Banks would say. Buck said no, Ernie Banks knew how to play, but what he did learn was how to play the game with love.”
― Joe Posnanski, The Soul of Baseball

“But Jackie Robinson was a man of faith. I do not just mean faith in God, though he was indeed a religious man. He also had extraordinary faith in himself and his destiny. He believed deeply that he was the one meant to cross baseball's color line. He believed deeply that God would not have led him down this path only to fail.
That faith filled him with something more powerful that confidence.
He knew that we would succeed because to do anything less would be unthinkable.”
― Joe Posnanski, The Baseball 100

“he winked at his manager and laughed as if the sun had come out from behind the clouds.”
― Joe Posnanski, The Soul of Baseball

“Baseball in the Negro Leagues was a little bit rougher, a little bit sweeter, a little bit faster, a little bit cooler, and a little bit more fun than anything... in Major League baseball.”
― Joe Posnanski, The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America

“When it comes to golf, Scottish people are famously reserved, undemonstrative, difficult to impress. Golf is like church in Scotland, church like golf.”
― Joe Posnanski, The Secret of Golf: The Story of Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus

“You can’t be afraid to lose!” he shouted with a jolt of force, and he pointed at me. “You will not win all the time in life. Sometimes the other team’s gonna lick ya. But you have to believe you will win. You know who wins in this world? I don’t care if it’s football or politics or business. The bold people win. The audacious people. People who are afraid to lose, they beat themselves. They lose before they ever get started. They have their excuses before the game is even played.”
― Joe Posnanski, Paterno

“Pujols was a 13th-round selection by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1999 draft. Thirteenth-round draft picks rarely make it—I do not say this lightly. Since the first year of the draft, only 13 percent of all 13th-round picks have made it to the big leagues at all, and less than 8 percent have posted even one win above replacement.”
― Joe Posnanski, The Baseball 100

“Sport is agony. We agree to suffer endlessly in exchange for the mere possibility of sublime rapture. Sometimes we even get it.”
― Joe Posnanski, Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments

“We decided to give him this base,” Cool Papa proudly said to the crowd, “because even if we hadn’t, he was going to take it anyway.”
― Joe Posnanski, The Baseball 100

“nothing is forgotten in baseball.”
― Joe Posnanski, Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments

“You made me love baseball,” Lisa tells Bart on The Simpsons. “Not as a collection of numbers but as an unpredictable, passionate game beaten in excitement only by every other sport.”
― Joe Posnanski, Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments

“He struck me out three times,” Hall of Famer Frank Robinson said. “And I wasn’t even playing.”
― Joe Posnanski, Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments

“But visualization is one thing. Being brutally honest means expecting bad shots. Because the reality is you will hit a lot of bad shots. The secret is to move on from those bad shots, and the way to do that is to be ready for them.”
― Joe Posnanski, The Secret of Golf: The Story of Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus

“The fact is that researchers have determined that Cool Papa Bell stole 285 bases in elite Negro League competition. The legend is that Cool Papa Bell could turn out the lights and be in bed before the room got dark. You tell me what’s more fun.”
― Joe Posnanski, Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments

“believe the mound visit scene in Bull Durham is the funniest scene in any baseball movie. And it almost didn’t make it into the movie. Why not? Producers didn’t think it “forwarded the plot.” They seemed unmoved by director Ron Shelton’s explanation that Bull Durham didn’t exactly have a plot.”
― Joe Posnanski, Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments

“The Red Stockings beat the Atlantic Baseball Club 76–5, and they beat the Pacific Baseball Club 66–5. Rough statistics were kept—George Wright hit .633 with 49 home runs.”
― Joe Posnanski, The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds

“Brainard. In those days, pitchers were supposed to pitch the ball underhanded—this is where the term “pitcher” came from—and they were supposed to let batters hit the ball. Of course, from the start, pitchers always looked for an edge. Brainard figured a way to sneak in a little extra wrist snap, which put spin on the ball and made it significantly harder to hit.”
― Joe Posnanski, The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds

“Fathers and sons… it’s a complicated business, a swirl of love and longing and friction and admiration and regret.”
― Joe Posnanski, The Baseball 100

“classic bit of understated Paterno”
― Joe Posnanski, Paterno

“And that’s when manager Eddie Sawyer called for Roberts to pitch relief and the Dodgers’ manager Charlie Dressen called in Don Newcombe to match up. Talk about a different time: Roberts and Newcombe had pitched the day before. They were on zero days rest”
― Joe Posnanski, The Baseball 100

“Joe Paterno would end every game by gathering the players and reciting the Lord’s Prayer. He loved it—not so much for religious reasons but for the words. Look. The Lord’s Prayer uses the words “us” and “we” and “our.” It doesn’t use the word “I” or “me” or “mine.” Paterno understood. It’s a team prayer.”
― Joe Posnanski, Paterno

“Anytime a pitcher throws a complete game shutout on fewer than 100 pitches, it is called a Maddux. Unsurprisingly, Greg Maddux has pitched the most Madduxes with 14.”
― Joe Posnanski, Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments

“And then Pujols hit the monster, no-doubt home run . . . and all that sound died immediately, suddenly, like someone had hit a mute button on the city of Houston. “It was so quiet,” Sweeney says, “you could practically hear Pujols’s cleats hitting the dirt.” So yes, it’s hard to imagine a louder sound than that silence.”
― Joe Posnanski, Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments

“Mussina was a brilliant high school pitcher in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, one town over from Williamsport, home of the Little League World Series. Milwaukee special assistant Doug Melvin was an Orioles scout then, and he saw Moose pitch and was blown away. Melvin said Mussina was an 18-year-old who pitched like he was 28. Moose had an advanced way of thinking about pitching. He saw it as a puzzle; Mussina has always been a puzzle guy, you know, crossword puzzles and such. He tried to think of the optimal way to keep hitters off-balance, to make them uncomfortable. With his pitching stuff and his keen mind, nobody in high school could touch him”
― Joe Posnanski, The Baseball 100

“to”
― Joe Posnanski, The Soul of Baseball

“Many people believe the term “ace” for outstanding pitcher began with Asa Brainard’s first name.”
― Joe Posnanski, The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds

“The ball traveled 450 feet according to one measurement, and Williams ran quickly around the bases “as if our praise were a storm of rain to get out of,” Updike wrote. He then disappeared into the dugout.”
― Joe Posnanski, Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments

“Perhaps more than any other sport, golf focuses pressure on the player. There are no time constraints, as there are in other sports. Your competitors are not allowed to hinder you, as they are in other sports. The pressure originates in yourself; it builds from doubts. A two-foot putt on the practice green doesn’t spark many doubts. A two-foot putt to win a bet or a tournament or a Masters is another thing entirely.”
― Joe Posnanski, The Secret of Golf: The Story of Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus