Explore Quotes by Branch Rickey

Cobb lived off the field as though he wished to live forever. He lived on the field as though it was his last day.

A full mind is an empty bat.

The greatest untapped reservoir of raw material in the history of our game is the black race.

First of all, a man, whether seeking achievement on the athletic field or in business, must want to win. He must feel that the thing he is doing is worthwhile; so worthwhile that he is willing to pay the price of success to attain distinction.

Baseball is a game of inches.

It is not the honor that you take with you, but the heritage you leave behind.

I find fault with my children because I like them and I want them to go places - uprightness and strength and courage and civil respect and anything that affects the probabilities of failure on the part of those that are closest to me, that concerns me - I find fault.

Success is that place in the road where preparation meets opportunity.

Luck is the residue of opportunity and design.

I cannot face my God much longer knowing that his black creatures are held separate and distinct from his white creatures in the game that has given me all that I can call my own.

Trade a player a year too early rather than a year too late.

The world’s not so simple anymore, I guess it never was. We ignored it, now we can’t.

Things worthwhile generally don’t just happen. Luck is a fact, but should not be a factor. Good luck is what is left over after intelligence and effort have combined at their best. Negligence or indifference are usually reviewed from an unlucky seat. The law of cause and effect and causality both work the same with inexorable exactitudes. Luck is the residue of design.

Thinking about the devil is worse than seeing the devil.

There never has been a man in the game who could put mind and muscle together quicker and with better judgment than Robinson.

I did not mind the public criticism. That sort of thing has not changed any program I thought was good.

I don't care if I was a ditch-digger at a dollar a day, I'd want to do my job better than the fellow next to me. I'd want to be the best at whatever I do.

It (a baseball box score) doesn't tell how big you are, what church you attend, what color you are, or how your father voted in the last election. It just tells what kind of baseball player you were on that particular day.

Thou shalt not steal. I mean defensively. On offense, indeed thou shall steal and thou must.

Only in baseball can a team player be a pure individualist first and a team player second, within the rules and spirit of the game.

The man with the ball is responsible for what happens to the ball.