“Baseball is only a game, a game of inches and a lot of luck. During a time of all-out war, sports are very insignificant.”

“I'm no hero. Heroes don't come back. Survivors return home. Heroes never come home. If anyone thinks I'm a hero, I'm not.”

“You can talk about teamwork on a baseball team, but I'll tell you, it takes teamwork when you have 2,900 men stationed on the U.S.S. Alabama in the South Pacific.”

“Sympathy is something that shouldn't be bestowed upon the Yankees. Apparently it angers them.”

“There was great leadership in this country at the time of World War II. There was also unrelenting resolve at home, in America's factories and on the farms, in the cities and the country.”

“If you believe your catcher is intelligent and you know that he has considerable experience, it is a good thing to leave the game almost entirely in his hands.”

“Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is.”

“Baseball is only a game, a game of inches and a lot of luck. During a time of all-out war, sports are very insignificant.”

“Yankee Stadium, it’s like everything else in this country. In Europe, they save all their old buildings for history. Here, we just tear them all down.”