Quotes by Willie Stargell

• When we make a mistake, it becomes front-page news. We don't need any reporter telling us how badly we played.
• To be successful, one must take chances.
• To me, baseball has always been a reflection of life. Like life, it adjusts. It survives everything.
• To middle-class parents, the project team may have seemed unfit for children, but it was exactly what I needed.
• Unfortunately, inner feelings and potential are often stunted by our parents, relatives or peers.
• Oakland revolved around Forbes Field. Nothing in the city could match that atmosphere.
• Vietnam helped me realize who the true heroes really are in this world. It's not the home-run hitters.
• We devote our entire lives to becoming good ball players. We take batting practice until our hands bleed.
• You only have a few years to play this game and you can't play it if you're all tied up in knots.
• They give you a round bat and they throw you a round ball and they tell you to hit it square.
• We all wore a 21 patch that one season as a silent tribute to our deceased teammate Roberto.
• I found myself in a race with Mother Nature to play as much baseball as I could before she forced me to stop.
• I was the most powerful left-handed hitter in the Alameda area.
• I was bred as an outcast, part Negro and part Seminole, in my early years raised as an Indian.
• I was always a self-proclaimed poor slider.
• I see a lot of people who love their jobs. I see some garbage collectors smiling as they go about their work.
• I owe a large part of my success to Joe Brown, who helped me both as a player and a person.
• I never search for a reason why - I have faith in the Lord's purpose.
• I never did allow anything to keep me from my kids. They're the most important part of my life.
• I loved to hit with men on base and with the game on the line.
• Playing baseball was my dream, and no amount of money could sway my opinion.
• I gave out stars whenever an appropriate situation presented itself.
• I'm a God-fearing man who worships with my heart and with my life.
• I flailed my arm in a throwing motion before I could even walk.
• I eventually became proud of my strikeouts, because each one represented another learning experience.
• I don't really feel that I deserve all my applause.
• I always said that when it was time to retire, I would know it, and I would just tip my hat to the crowds.
• Human beings are pampered by the Lord. Their real tests don't come until later in life.
• Helping someone is what life is all about.
• Baseball for me was instinctive, born within me, given to me as a gift from God.
• A World Series trophy is a wonderful thing to behold.
• I love September, especially when we're in it.
• Love soothes wounds, while hatred and violence deepen them.
• The Giants were a good team, but our biggest enemy was said to be Candlestick Park.
• The bat is gone, but the smile remains.
• That's where the future lies, in the youth of today.
• Simple pleasures were all the pleasures that I knew as a child.
• Reporters often forget that athletes are human beings.
• People like us are afraid to leave ball. What else is there to do? When baseball has been your whole life, you can't think about a future without it, so you hang on as long as you can.
• Never was I booed.
• I wasn't out drinking and abusing my body. I simply loved to go out and dance.
• My first job after my retirement from baseball was as a narrator for the Eastman Philharmonica.
• I would always reserve a special place in my heart for Pittsburgh.
• Life is one big transition.
• Judgment traps you within the limitations of your comparisons. It inhibits freedom.
• It's supposed to be fun, the man says 'Play Ball' not 'Work Ball' you know.
• If a reporter doesn't like the person he's writing about, it shows up in his article.
• I've witnessed thousands of superior athletes try to becomes hitters and fail at it.
• I've always been a slave to my heart.
• I'm proud of the fact that I'm the only player to hit a ball completely out of Dodger Stadium.
• I'm always amazed when a pitcher becomes angry at a hitter for hitting a home run off him. When I strike out, I don't get angry at the pitcher, I get angry at myself. I would think that if a pitcher threw up a home run ball, he should be angry at himself.
• There's nothing I value more than the closeness of friends and family, a smile as I pass someone on the street.
• Never had I had so many friends and so much fun as I did in the projects.