I was afraid if I started to hit home runs, my average would drop.
Asdrubal Cabrera
Yesterday's home runs don't win today's games.
Babe Ruth
Reading isn't good for a ballplayer. Not good for his eyes. If my eyes went bad even a little bit I couldn't hit home runs. So I gave up reading.
For a long time, I'd been vaguely fascinated by the idea that Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic and Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in the same summer.
Bill Bryson
The questions don't happen when you hit 30 homers, right? If you hit 30 home runs, you hit 40 doubles, I don't think anybody questions your conditioning or your offseason program.
Billy Butler
The key to hitting a lot of home runs as a player at Kauffman Stadium is that you'd better run into some on the road.
I'd get 3-4 cheap home runs every year. You know, little 'wood shots' down either line. They would be pop flies in any other park. But, goodness me, they didn't count the number of long outs!
Bobby Thomson
Stealing bases is just something I like to do. I figure if I can hit home runs and steal bases, I'd be different than everybody else.
Carl Crawford
I always try to have some good at-bats. Home runs come once in a while; that's good.
Carlos Ruiz
Managing is getting paid for home runs that someone else hits.
Casey Stengel
Ability is the art of getting credit for all the home runs somebody else hits.
I'm the same guy I've always been. I'm the same guy now as when I was hitting 50 home runs. I don't change.
David Ortiz
Pitching keeps you in the games. Home runs win the game.
Earl Weaver
I don't try to hit home runs. I just try to meet the ball and get base hits.
Ernie Banks
At the Home Run Derby, you're expected to hit home runs. You're up there trying to hit home runs.
Frank Thomas
I've never been a guy that's consistently hit home runs. It's always seemed to come, like, three or four in a week or two, and then I'll shut it down for a couple of weeks.
Freddie Freeman
Obviously, being a first baseman, you're kind of expected to hit some home runs. Obviously, that goes into your head; it gets into my head a little bit.
When McGwire started the home run mania, attendance came back. The owners understood that the sudden spike in homers wasn't accidental. All baseball knew it. But baseball is run on money, and home runs meant money. Baseball turned a blind eye.
Gary Sheffield
Do I want someone to get more hits than me? No. Do I want someone to hit more home runs than me? No. Do I want someone to have more RBI than me? No. I get a kick out of seeing the all-time leaders and my name's on top of every one, with the exception of strikeouts. I get a kick out of that.
George Brett
How to hit home runs: I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball.
George Herman
Whether or not anybody had invented the category in his lifetime, Babe Ruth was surely the Greatest Living Yankee almost immediately upon lofting home runs at the Polo Grounds, allowing the Yankees to build their own palace across the Harlem River.
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.
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.
Chicks who dig home runs aren't the ones who appeal to me.
I don't go up there and try to hit home runs.
There's been a couple of guys who have gotten me. I used to say Adrian Gonzalez. He's a good lefty hitter; he's hit a few home runs off of me. They were a couple of mistakes, so if you make your pitches, you're more likely to have a better outcome.
I've been a Yankees fan for a long time. When I was a kid in the mid-'70s, the Yankees were really great. They had Reggie Jackson in '77. I was 8 years old at the time. He hit three home runs to win the World Series in game six against the Dodgers, and I was just hooked.
Major league baseball has asked its players to stop tossing baseballs into the stands during games, because they say fans fight over them and they get hurt. In fact, the Florida Marlins said that's why they never hit any home runs. It's a safety issue.
If that had been my only purpose in life - to call home runs and touchdowns - I'd lead a pretty shallow life.
I take my vote as a salute to the little guy, the one who doesn't hit 500 home runs. I was one of the guys that did all they could to win. I'm proud of my stats, but I don't think I ever got on for.
All the New York City Ballet does is hit beautiful home runs.
The fans love the home runs, the home run competition between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.
In baseball, you can hit 40 home runs on a single-A-league team and never get paid a thing. But in a hedge fund, you get paid on your batting average. So you go to the worst league you can find, where there's the least competition.
David Ortiz is a genius. He's incredible to watch. Over and over, he hits home runs that are simply transcendent.
I heard Tony Bennett say that when you're a big deal early on, you have to maintain that level forever, and it's very scary. You have to keep hitting those home runs, turning out hits.
My dad hit 152 home runs and that's the person I wanted to be like. My hero growing up.
I may not hit 50, 40 or 30 home runs, but I can do the little things like moving runners over that don't show up in the box score.
No one hit home runs the way Babe did. They were something special. They were like homing pigeons. The ball would leave the bat, pause briefly, suddenly gain its bearings, then take off for the stands.
We all know that players will hit a few more home runs than usual in some years and a few less in others. But the mathematics of chance also predicts that some years they'll hit a lot more, and some years a lot less.
I'm sure people will wonder if I could have hit all those home runs had I never taken steroids.
I want to be the player who hits home runs, drives in runs.
Who would people rather see, a real hitter hitting home runs or a pitcher swinging a wet newspaper?
It was in 1942 and I flew from St. Louis to Mexico City. I had just gotten married and we were on our honeymoon. I hit .397 and led the Mexican League with 20 home runs and was named the MVP of the league. It's when I realized I could compete with anyone at any level.
I don't care about the home runs as much as just being consistent and RBIs.
I don't hit home runs in BP.
Too often, wealthy people born on third base blithely criticize the poor for failing to hit home runs. The advantaged sometimes perceive empathy as a sign of muddle-headed weakness rather than as a marker of civilization.
I just try to get on anyway that I can, hit, hit-by-pitch, walk, home runs, anything.
Willie Mays could throw better, and Hank Aaron could hit more home runs. But I've got enthusiasm. I've got desire. I've got hustle. Those are God-given talents, too.
In 2007, I hit 50 home runs. That was pretty cool. I never thought I'd be able to do that. At the time, I didn't even think it was that big of a deal for some reason. But now, looking back, I realize it was pretty cool.
Imagine if you had baseball cards that showed all the performance stats for your people: batting averages, home runs, errors, ERAs, win/loss records. You could see what they did well and poorly and call on the right people to play the right positions in a very transparent way.
