Babe Ruth is the most recognizable baseball player in the history of the sport. People can debate as to who was the greatest but the Babe will forever be the face of America’s Pastime and let’s be honest here, guys like Ty Cobb were incredible but Babe Ruth is the greatest baseball player to every step foot on a field. He had a career batting average of .342, 2,873 hits, and 2,213 RBI’s. He also hit 714 home runs when baseballs were essentially a rock wrapped in leather. Oh, and did we forget to mention his pitching record of 94-46 with an ERA of 2.28? The man is baseball. He loved what he did and it showed. Ruth was generous, kind, and looked out for others. Aside from what he did on the field, the Babe gave some of the greatest quotes. It was hard but we picked the best of the best, enjoy.
“The only real game, I think, in the world is baseball.”
“I won’t be happy until we have every boy in America between the ages of six and sixteen wearing a glove and swinging a bat.”
“The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.”
“Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world.”
“If I’d tried for them dinky singles I could’ve batted around six hundred.”
“How to hit home runs: I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball… The harder you grip the bat, the more you can swing it through the ball, and the farther the ball will go. I swing big, with everything I’ve got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can.”
“As soon as I got out there I felt a strange relationship with the pitcher’s mound. It was as if I’d been born out there. Pitching just felt like the most natural thing in the world. Striking out batters was easy.”
“Baseball is the greatest game in the world and deserves the best you can give it.”
“All I can tell them is pick a good one and sock it. I get back to the dugout and they ask me what it was I hit and I tell them I don’t know except it looked good.”
“I thank heaven we have had baseball in this world… the kids… our national pastime.”
“You know this baseball game of ours comes up from the youth – that means the boys. And after you’ve been a boy, and grow up to know how to play ball, then you come to the boys you see representing themselves today in our national pastime.”
“I’d give a year of my life if I could hit a homerun on opening day of this great new park.”
“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”
“Never let the fear of striking out keep you from coming up to bat.”
“It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.”
Bonus Quote:
When the Babe was asked what he thought of Ty Cobb, he kept it short, sweet, and completely accurate when he said, “Ty Cobb is a prick.”
Article By: Jon DaBove
