Sports Quotes

In my heart, I am always a Raider.

Nixon was a crook, of course, but he was also a rabid football fan - and he knew the game, which still astounds me, but I have always had a soft spot for him because of it.

Pitching always beats batting — and vice-versa.

A school without football is in danger of deteriorating into a medieval study hall.

Great players never look in the mirror and think I'm a great basketball player. You ask yourself, Am I the best player I can be?

Why doesn’t the fattest man in the world become a hockey goalie?

If you want to get a deal, negotiate with the teams yourself. Say, "I want this much, and no less, but I'll show up to camp on time." It doesn't seem that hard to me.

Enjoy the game. Happy golf is good golf.

Nixon was a bad loser. He hated losing worse than death, and that is why I enjoyed him. We were both football fans, both addicts; and on some days, nothing else mattered.

We shall play every game to the hilt with every ounce of fiber we have in our bodies.

I can see how he (Sandy Koufax) won twenty-five games. What I don't understand is how he lost five.

I missed 9000 shots in my career, lost almost 300 games and missed the shot to win the game 26 times.

You've got to have great athletes to win, I don't care who the coach is. You can't win without good athletes but you can lose with them. This is where coaching makes the difference.

When money comes in at the gate, sport flies out at the window.

Golf. Trying to knock a tiny ball into an even smaller hole with implements ill suited to the purpose.

I love baseball, I really do. I always told my Dad, I'm not gonna make it working... I like to play ball too much. Which I did. I played hard. You gotta work at this game. You really do. And its fun doing it if you do it the right way.

Cricket is basically baseball on valium.

My uncle played rugby, and my dad played football, and they used to argue which game was the roughest - and everybody agreed rugby was. It's a great team sport, and to be successful, every person has to play in the same level.

A Negro just can't be whipped by somebody white and return with his head up in the neighborhood, especially in those days, when sports and, to a lesser extent show business, were the only fields open to Negroes, and when the ring was the only place a Negro could whip a white man and not be lynched.

International football is the continuation of war by other means.

I'm a big football fan, but I have to tell you if I had a son, I'd have to think long and hard before I let him play football.

Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life. Football begins in the fall, when everything's dying.

We must have football. What would this country be without football in October?

Baseball is the greatest of American games. Some say football, but it is my firm belief, and it shall always be, that baseball has no superior.

You can't think and hit the ball at the same time.

Golf is an arrogant, elitist game that takes up entirely too much space in this country.

February is always a bad month for TV sports. Football is gone, basketball is plodding along in the annual midseason doldrums, and baseball is not even mentioned.

College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity.

But in my mind, I don't think there's any question Sidney Crosby is the best all-around player in the game. His hockey sense is so strong and so solid, combined with his God-gifted talent of being able to see the ice, see the entire picture in front of him. And, most importantly, I don't care how good you are, if you don't have a work ethic, it doesn't matter. There's no question that each and every game, he's one of the hardest-working guys on the ice. In my mind, he's the best player in the game today.

But golf being an international game and everybody loving the game the way they do, if you want to spread the game of golf, it's good that you have great competition.

Men have no cause to criticize women about the way they are about weddings. Because men are like that about sports, but it never ends. At least women, after the wedding, say it wasn't that big a deal and they're never going to look at the DVD again. Men never stop being crazy about sports.

The best players in the game want the responsibility of being the best player. The reality is the game has changed from now back to '87. It's a lot tighter checking. The players are better today. So, that makes it harder for him just in that fact. We can't rely solely on Mario [Lemieux] to carry this team. We're not relying on that.

The real reason your pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing at you.

They say a tie is like kissing your sister. I guess that is better than kissing your brother.

There was a beauty here bigger than the hurtling beauty of basketball, a beauty refined from country pastures, a game of solitariness, of waiting, waiting for the pitcher to complete his gaze toward first base and throw his lightning, a game whose very taste, of spit and dust and grass and sweat and leather and sun, was America.

We were over-whelming underdogs.

But my point is that competitive eating is a real sport, and I considered taking it up. But when I thought about what this would mean sitting around for hours, stuffing my face with unhealthy food I realized it was basically the same thing as journalism.

I have failed many times, but I have never gone into a game expecting myself to fail.

Does college pay? They do if you are a good open-field runner.

You've got a goal in life. I've got a goal. Now all we need is a football team.

I don't blame the players today for the money. I blame the owners. They started it. They wanna give it to 'em? More power to 'em.

It's really hard. And it's harder today because of the salary cap. It starts in September at training camp - getting every guy on the same page, being as mentally and physically as focused as you can be. Then in April and May, you basically spend eight weeks practising, watching video and playing games. That's your life.

Once I get the ball, you're at my mercy. There is nothing you can say or do about it. I own the ball.

The score never interested me, only the game.

My father watched football with the sound off because he lived in fear of hearing the voice of Howard Cosell.

Look at guys like Larry Bird and George Brett and John McEnroe; that's what they did in their careers. They all wanted to be the guy under the microscope late in the game or late in the match. So you just take on that know-how that that's part of your responsibility, and you learn that's what makes it exciting. That's what makes it fun!

How can a you hit and think at the same time?

You'll never catch me bragging about goals, but I'll talk all you want about my assists.

Baseball is meant to be fun, and not all the solemn money-men in fur-collared greatcoats, not all the scruffy media cameramen and sour-faced reporters that crowd around the dugouts can quite smother the exhilarating spaciousness and grace of this impudently relaxed sport, a game of innumerable potential redemptions and curious disappointments.

When you're playing an exhibition, you're kind of letting everyone get an opportunity.

I bowled a 129... It was like the Special Olympics or something!

What drove me to become the world's greatest bodybuilder is no different from what drives other athletes to become great tennis players or boxers or jockeys.

So, the next time you're out working on your game and they pass you the rock, don't just take it to the hole. Take it to the next level. Don't just bend rims. Bend expectations. Let them see you and feel you and by the very virtue of your love, the truth in your game, they will hear you. Let your game speak.

The game is supposed to be fun. If you had a bad day, don't worry. You can't expect to get a hit every game.

I am a professional sportswriter, among other things, and I take the games seriously. It is only one of my many powerful addictions, and I don't mind admitting any of them.

A home opener is always exciting, no matter if it's home or on the road.

In life, as in football, the principle to follow is to hit the line hard.

Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an ever smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

The Raiders of old were vicious and crazy and cruel. Hanging around their locker room was like hanging around the weight room at Folsom Prison.