After Jackie Robinson the most important black in baseball history is Reggie Jackson, I really mean that.

I am the best in baseball.

I was reminded that when we lose and I strike out, a billion people in China don’t care.

I don’t mind getting beaten, but I hate to lose.

Babe Ruth was great. I’m just lucky.

When you take a pitch and line it somewhere, it’s like you’ve thought of something and put it there with beautiful clarity.

I’m human and I’ve played my butt off for ten years. I’m not a loafer, I’m not a jerk, I’m a baseball player.

I have a hard time believing athletes are overpriced. If an owner is losing money, give it up. It’s a business. I have trouble figuring out why owners would stay in if they’re losing money.

The greatest manager has a knack for making ballplayers think they are better than they think they are.

Hitting is better than sex.

Fans don’t boo nobodies.

The only way I’m going to win a Gold Glove is with a can of spray paint.

You know, this game’s not very much fun when you’re only hitting .247.

The only difference between me and those other great Yankees is my skin color.

In the building I live in on Park Avenue there are ten people who could buy the Yankees, but none of them could hit the ball out of Yankee Stadium.

The only reason I don’t like playing in the World Series is I can’t watch myself play.

I’d like to be able to light the fire a little bit.

A baseball swing is a very finely tuned instrument. It is repetition, and more repetition, then a little more after that.

When you’ve played this game for ten years and gone to bat seven-thousand times and gotten two-thousand hits do you know what that really means? It means you’ve gone zero for five-thousand.

I didn’t come to New York to be a star, I brought my star with me.

Please God, let me hit one. I’ll tell everybody you did it.

October, that’s when they pay off for playing ball.

You don’t face Nolan Ryan without your rest. He’s the only guy I go against that makes me go to bed before midnight.