The Queen’s (Somewhat Fractured) English
Among the many gifts Baseball has bestowed upon us are two notable philosophers, Casey Stengel and Yogi Berra. Both have left a legacy of wonderful aphorisms, which often appear to be contradictory, but somehow most make sense. You judge.
Casey:
- Most games are lost, not won.
- Don’t cut my throat, I may want to do that later myself.
- There are three things you can do in a baseball game. You can win, or you can lose, or it can rain.
- If we’re going to win the pennant, we’ve got to start thinking we’re not as good as we think we are.
- Managing is getting paid for home runs that someone else hits.
- The team has come along slow but fast.
- Two hundred million Americans, and there ain’t two good catchers among ’em.
- All right everyone, line up alphabetically according to your height.
- There comes a time in every man’s life, and I’ve had plenty of them.
- Never make predictions, especially about the future.Being with a woman all night never hurt no professional baseball player. It’s staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in.
Yogi:
- Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.
- Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.
- Half the lies they tell about me aren’t true.
- The future ain’t what it used to be.
- If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.
- Baseball is ninety percent mental, and the other half is physical.
- It gets late early out there.
- I just want to thank everyone who made this day necessary.
- If the world was perfect, it wouldn’t be.