Projo Sox Blog

By Glenn Liebman
Albany Times Union

One thing that sports fans love are top 10 lists - 10 greatest baseball players, sports movies, football teams, announcers and so much more.

As both a compulsive list maker and the author of many sports quote books, I thought it would be fun to compile the all-time Top 10 Yankees quotes.

This is not as easy at it would appear. After all, not only are the Yankees the winningest franchise in history, but they also are the funniest.

Think about it. Yogi Berra, Casey Stengel, Babe Ruth, Graig Nettles, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Lefty Gomez, Billy Martin, Phil Rizzuto, Sparky Lyle, David Wells. The list goes on.
With apologies to David Letterman, from 10 to 1, this is my list of the greatest Yankees quotes of all-time, but first a few honorable mentions.

Honorable Mention Number 1

"I'm a vice president in charge of special marketing. That means I play golf and go to cocktail parties. I'm pretty good at my job."
- Mickey Mantle, on his job with an Atlantic City casino.

Honorable Mention Number 2

"One of them had me dead already."
- Mark Koenig, in his 80s, on why he didn't trust books written about the 1927 Yankees.

Honorable Mention Number 3

"All I know is that I pass people in the street these days, and they don't know whether to say hello or to say goodbye."
- Billy Martin, on his many hirings and firings as Yankees manager.

Now on to the Top 10 ...

10. "It gets late early out there."
- Yogi Berra, on the shadows at Yankee Stadium.

9. "All right, everyone line up alphabetically according to your height."
- Casey Stengel, in spring training.

8. "Pitching is 80 percent of the game. The other half is hitting and fielding."
- Mickey Rivers.

7. "I had only one superstition. I made sure to touch all the bases when I hit a home run."
- Babe Ruth.

6. "From Cy Young to Sayonara in one season."
- Graig Nettles, on Sparky Lyle winning the Cy Young Award in 1977 and then being traded after 1978 season.

5. "Only in America could something like that happen."
- Yogi Berra, on a Jew being elected mayor of Dublin, Ireland.

4. "In the daytime you sat in the dugout and talked about women. At night you went out with women and talked about baseball."
- Waite Hoyt, on baseball in the old days.

3. "The secret of managing a club is to keep the five guys who hate you away from the five guys who are undecided."
- Casey Stengel.

2. "There's no way they could bury 12 people out there."
- Bob Kearney, former Mariners catcher, on the 12 monuments behind the center field wall in the old Yankee Stadium.

1. "My father looked at the check and then told the scout, 'Throw in another hundred and you can take the rest of the family.' "
- Joe Dugan, on signing with the Yankees for $500 in the early 1920s.

 Tags  New York Yankees

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