Pete Rose Quotes

You'd be surprised how many shortcomings can be overcome by hustle.

Jay Z got Cano a big raise, but he got him an extra 30-day vacation - and it's called October.

See the ball; hit the ball.

You owe it to yourself to be the best you can possibly be - in baseball and in life.

If you have someone equal in ability to me I will beat him every time because I will try harder.

Am I still in uniform? Then I ain't retired.

Doctors tell me I have the body of a thirty year old. I know I have the brain of a fifteen year old. If you've got both, you can play baseball.

Somebody's gotta win and somebody's gotta lose and I believe in letting the other guy lose.

People say I don't have great tools. They say that I can't throw like Ellis Valentine or run like Tim Raines or hit with power like Mike Schmidt. Who can? I make up for it in other ways, by putting out a little bit more. That's my theory, to go through life hustling. In the big leagues, hustle usually means being in the right place at the right time. It means backing up a base. It means backing up your teammate. It means taking that headfirst slide. It means doing everything you can do to win a baseball game.

Creating success is tough. But keeping it is tougher. You have to keep producing, you can't ever stop.

Every time I step up to the plate, I expect to get a hit. If I don't expect to get a hit, I have no right to step into the batter's box in the first place.

Practice the game the way you're going to play the game. Practice hard and play hard. Run hard and above all else, hustle every moment you're on the field where you are practicing or playing in a game.

Sliding headfirst is the safest way to get to the next base, I think, and the fastest. You don't lose your momentum, and there's one more important reason I slide headfirst, it gets my picture in the paper.

I'm just like everybody else. I have two arms, two legs and four-thousand hits.

You know what God told the Cubs? Don't do anything until I come back.

If somebody is gracious enough to give me a second chance, I won't need a third.

Once you accept defeat, it becomes ease to lose. If defeat comes, face it and take it, but don't accept it.

I'd walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play baseball.

Unfortunately, gambling and winning don't often go hand-in-hand.

It's a round ball and a round bat, and you got to hit it square.

Singles hitters drive Fords. Home-run hitters drive Cadillacs.

My father taught me that the only way you can make good at anything is to practice, and then practice some more.

If I had been busted for drugs instead of gambling, I'd still be managing the Reds and baseball would be paying for my rehab.

The thing I would like most to leave behind is to be remembered for trying hard.

When you play this game twenty years, go to bat ten-thousand times, and get three-thousand hits, do you know what that means? You've gone zero for seven-thousand.

I don't like to be compared to Joe Jackson. because Joe Jackson, I think, took money to throw World Series games. Well, I know I bet on my own team to win. There's pretty much a big difference there, but both of us were wrong.

Some players you pat their butts, some players you kick their butts, some players you leave alone.

There is an old saying that money can't buy happiness. If it could, I would buy myself four hits every game.

The manager of a team is like a stagecoach, he can't move unless he has the horses.

Baseball is a universal language. Catch the ball, throw the ball, hit the ball.

The only book I ever read cover to cover was The Pete Rose Story. I read half of The Lou Gehrig Story and then made a book report on it for four straight years.

The team that wins two-thirds of its one run games usually wins the pennant.

I was born on the day Lincoln was shot and the Titanic sank.

Hitting. That's what I enjoy most. Realistically, it's probably the hardest thing to do in all of sport. Think about it. You've got a round ball, a round bat, and the object is to hit it square.

I don't smoke. Smoking will hurt you when you try to run out a triple.

I've got a 15-year old son and a 10-year old daughter, and if they were going to do one of the following things: be an alcoholic; be a drug offender; beat their wife or husband; or gamble. I hope they would gamble.

Whoever said "It's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game" is full of it! Winning makes all the difference in the world. Winning is fun. Losing is not. Losing sucks.

A hitter's impatience is the pitcher's biggest advantage.

I haven't missed a game in two-and-a-half years. I go to the park as sick as a dog and, when I see my uniform hanging there, I get well right now. Then I see some of you guys (media) and I get sick again.

I'd be willing to bet you, if I were a betting man, that I have never bet on baseball.

With the money I'm making, I should be playing two positions.

Brooks Robinson belongs in a higher league.

The greatest competitor was Bob Gibson. He worked so fast out there and he always had the hood up. He always wanted to close his own deal. He never talked to you because he was battling so hard. I sure as hell don't miss batting against him, but I miss him in the game.

I admitted I bet on baseball, but I wasn't suspended from baseball for betting on baseball.

I never gave up as a player, and I won't give up as someone who wants to go to the Hall of Fame, because it's the ultimate goal for a baseball player or a football player or a basketball player.

When you step into the batter's box, have nothing on your mind except baseball.

I made mistakes. I can’t whine about it. I’m the one that messed up and I’m paying the consequences. However, if I am given a second chance, I won’t need a third chance. And to be honest with you, I picked the wrong vice. I should have picked alcohol. I should have picked drugs or I should have picked up beating up my wife or girlfriend because if you do those three, you get a second chance. They haven’t given too many gamblers second chances in the world of baseball.

I'm not bad (his speed). I'm no Joe Morgan, but I'm pretty good for a white guy.

Playing baseball for a living is like having a license to steal.

When I get the record, all it will make me is the player with the most hits. I'm also the player with the most at bats and the most outs. I never said I was a greater player than (Ty) Cobb.