I try to be a good human being and keep up with what's going on in the world by reading and staying in touch with the current events.
— Bob Feller
I was only a gun captain on the battleship Alabama for 34 months. People have called me a hero for that, but I'll tell you this - heroes don't come home. Survivors come home.
You can talk about teamwork on a baseball team, but I'll tell you, it takes teamwork when you have 2,900 men stationed on the U.S.S. Alabama in the South Pacific.
Baseball is only a game, a game of inches and a lot of luck. During a time of all-out war, sports are very insignificant.
My father kept me busy from dawn to dusk when I was a kid. When I wasn't pitching hay, hauling corn or running a tractor, I was heaving a baseball into his mitt behind the barn... If all the parents in the country followed his rule, juvenile delinquency would be cut in half in a year's time.
I'm no hero. Heroes don't come back. Survivors return home. Heroes never come home. If anyone thinks I'm a hero, I'm not.
When I pick up the ball and it feels nice and light and small I know I'm going to have a good day. But if I picked it up and it's big and heavy, I know I'm liable to get into a little trouble.
Nowadays, they have more trouble packing hair dryers than baseball equipment.
I don't think baseball owes colored people anything. I don't think colored people owe baseball anything, either.
I spent 34 months on the battleship Alabama, South Dakota-class. I was a gun captain. First we went to Russia for about 11 months with the British convoys. Then we were up in Norway and Scandinavia.
I did what any American could and should do: serve his country in its time of need.
The soldiers that didn't come back were the heroes. It's a roll of the dice. If a bullet has your name on it, you're a hero. If you hear a bullet go by, you're a survivor.
There was great leadership in this country at the time of World War II. There was also unrelenting resolve at home, in America's factories and on the farms, in the cities and the country.
Nobody lives forever and I've had a blessed life.
The difference between relief pitching when I did it today is simple, there is too much of it. It's one of those cases where more is not necessarily better.
Ted Williams was the greatest hitter I ever saw, but DiMaggio was the greatest all around player.
I would rather beat the Yankees regularly than pitch a no hit game.
Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is.
If you ask the people in Europe who won World War II, they don't say the Allies; they say the United States won the war and saved the world.
I went on inactive duty in August 1945, and since I had stayed in such good shape and had played ball on military teams, I was ready to start for the Indians just two days later, against the Tigers.
Life comes down to honesty and doing what's right. That's what's most important.
I needed to join the Navy. If you ask the people in Europe who won World War II, they don't say the Allies, they say the United States won the war and saved the world.
My father loved baseball and he cultivated my talent. I don't think he ever had any doubt in his mind that I would play professional baseball someday.
Where the ball went was up to heaven. Sometimes I threw the ball clean up into the stands.
Sympathy is something that shouldn't be bestowed upon the Yankees. Apparently it angers them.
If you believe your catcher is intelligent and you know that he has considerable experience, it is a good thing to leave the game almost entirely in his hands.
