Willie Mays Quotes

When I was in Birmingham I used to go to a place called Redwood Field. I used to get there for a two o’clock game. Where can you make this kind of money playing sports? It was just a pleasure to go out and enjoy myself and get paid for it.

At ten I was playing against 18-year-old guys. At 15 I was playing professional ball with the Birmingham Black Barons, so I really came very quickly in all sports.

I think I was programmed to do good things when I came into the majors. I knew how to play.

If you can do that – if you run, hit, run the bases, hit with power, field, throw and do all other things that are part of the game – then you’re a good ballplayer.

Every time I look at my pocketbook, I see Jackie Robinson.

I played with the Birmingham Black Barons. I was making 500 at 14. That was a lot of money in those days.

Robinson was important to all blacks. To make it into the majors and to take all the name calling, he had to be something special. He had to take all this for years, not just for Jackie Robinson, but for the nation.

I’m a very lucky guy. I had so many people help me over the years that I never had many problems. If I had a problem, I could sit down with someone and they would explain the problem to me, and the problem become like a baseball game.

I think I was the best baseball player I ever saw.

And my father didn’t have money for me to go to college. And at that particular time they didn’t have black quarterbacks, and I don’t think I could have made it in basketball, because I was only 5′ 11″. So I just picked baseball.

I didn’t say I was that smart, I said I went to class and I enjoyed what I was doing.

When I got to professional ball I used to play 150 games every year. It depends on how many games there was.

Defense to me is the key to playing baseball.

That’s how easy baseball was for me. I’m not trying to brag or anything, but I had the knowledge before I became a professional baseball player to do all these things and know what each guy would hit.

Yes, I had to learn how to live life outside, but I had so many people help me.

I was very fortunate to play sports. All the anger in me went out. I had to do what I had to do. If you stay angry all the time, then you really don’t have a good life.

When I’m not hitting, I don’t hit nobody. But, when I’m hitting, I hit anybody.

Maybe I was born to play ball. Maybe I truly was.

I don’t compare ’em, I just catch ’em.

They throw the ball, I hit it. They hit the ball, I catch it.