Willie Mays Quotes

Quotes about:

Baseball Eyes Inspirational Motivational Sports

What you are thinking, what shape your mind is in, is what makes the biggest difference of all.

Willie Mays

Thinking, Differences, Mind

Willie Mays, Charles Einstein (1966). “Willie Mays: My Life in and Out of Baseball”

38 Copy quote
It isn't hard to be good from time to time in sports. What is tough, is being good every day.

Willie Mays

Inspirational, Motivational, Sports

62 Copy quote
In order to excel, you must be completely dedicated to your chosen sport. You must also be prepared to work hard and be willing to accept constructive criticism. Without one-hundred percent dedication, you won't be able to do this.

Willie Mays

Inspirational, Motivational, Sports

57 Copy quote
They throw the ball, I hit it. They hit the ball, I catch it.

Willie Mays

Sports, Baseball, African American

77 Copy quote
In order to excel, you must be completely dedicated.

Willie Mays

Dedication, Order, Devotion

38 Copy quote
Never assume the other guy will never do something you would never do.

Willie Mays

Guy, Other Guys, Assuming

28 Copy quote
I think I was the best baseball player I ever saw.

Willie Mays

Baseball, Player, Thinking

"Willie Mays Remembers Mentor Monte Irvin". "All Things Considered" with Laura Wagner, www.npr.org. January 13, 2016.

49 Copy quote
I remember the last season I played. I went home after a ballgame one day, lay down on my bed, and tears came to my eyes. How can you explain that? It's like crying for your mother after she's gone. You cry because you love her. I cried, I guess, because I loved baseball, and I knew I had to leave it.

Willie Mays

Inspirational, Motivational, Baseball

Biography/Personal Quotes, labs.imdb.com.

6 Copy quote
What's tough is being good every day.

Willie Mays

Inspirational, Sports, Game Day

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

Willie Mays

Baseball, Looks, Jackie

"Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

23 Copy quote
One of the hardest parts of practice is the criticism a player takes from his coaches. Some players think a coach has it in for them when a flaw in style is pointed out ... I know that when things start going wrong, for one, I get the coach to keep his eye on me to see what I'm suddenly doing wrong. I can't see it or I wouldn't be doing it in the first place.

Willie Mays

Sports, Eye, Player

24 Copy quote
Maybe I was born to play ball. Maybe I truly was.

Willie Mays

Play, Balls, Born

Willie Mays, Charles Einstein (1955). “Born to play ball”

12 Copy quote
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.

Willie Mays

Sports, Good Life, Play

"Greatest All-Around Player in the History of Baseball". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. February 19, 1996.

20 Copy quote
Youngsters of Little League can survive undercoaching a lot better than overcoaching.

Willie Mays

League, Littles, Little League

21 Copy quote
I always enjoyed playing ball, and it didn't matter to me whether I played with white kids or black. I never understood why an issue was made of who I played with, and I never felt comfortable, when I grew up, telling other people how to act

Willie Mays

Kids, White, Issues

21 Copy quote
Baseball is a game, yes. It is also a business. But what is most truly is is disguised combat. For all its gentility, its almost leisurely pace, baseball is violence under wraps.

Willie Mays

Baseball, Games, Pace

30 Copy quote
In 1950, when the Giants signed me, they gave me $15,000. I bought a 1950 Mercury. I couldn't drive, but I had it in the parking lot there, and everybody that could drive would drive the car. So it was like a community thing

Willie Mays

Car, Community, Giants

"Greatest All-Around Player in the History of Baseball". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. February 19, 1996.

21 Copy quote
I would try and help everybody, because the game was so easy for me. It was just like walking in the park.

Willie Mays

Walking Away, Games, Trying

"Greatest All-Around Player in the History of Baseball". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. February 19, 1996.

9 Copy quote
When I'm not hitting, I don't hit nobody. But, when I'm hitting, I hit anybody.

Willie Mays

Hitting

20 Copy quote
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.

Willie Mays

Baseball, Running, Games

15 Copy quote
Defense to me is the key to playing baseball.

Willie Mays

Motivational, Sports, Baseball

"Greatest All-Around Player in the History of Baseball". The Academy of Achievement interview, www.achievement.org. February 19, 1996.

9 Copy quote
"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."

Willie Mays

Inspirational, Basketball, Baseball

"What It Takes: Willie Mays". Interview with Alice Winkler, learningenglish.voanews.com. August 25, 2017.

5 Copy quote
I don't know what Joe (DiMaggio)
wanted (in regards to being called 'the greatest living ballplayer'), but I don't have a problem, if he wanted to do that. He was my hero. Joe
was the best all-around player. Joe
was the best. I only played against him once, in the '51 Series.

Willie Mays

Hero, Player, Problem

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

Willie Mays

Black, Making Money, Birmingham

"Greatest All-Around Player in the History of Baseball". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. February 19, 1996.

8 Copy quote
Baseball is a game, yes. It is also a business.

Willie Mays

Baseball, Games, Gentility

"Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

17 Copy quote

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Born: May 6, 1931
Occupation: Baseball player
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