Bob Feller

“I spent 34 months on the battleship Alabama, South Dakota-class. I was a gun captain. First we went to Russia for about 11 months with the British convoys. Then we were up in Norway and Scandinavia.”

“My father loved baseball and he cultivated my talent. I don't think he ever had any doubt in his mind that I would play professional baseball someday.”

“I went on inactive duty in August 1945, and since I had stayed in such good shape and had played ball on military teams, I was ready to start for the Indians just two days later, against the Tigers.”

“My father kept me busy from dawn to dusk when I was a kid. When I wasn't pitching hay, hauling corn or running a tractor, I was heaving a baseball into his mitt behind the barn... If all the parents in the country followed his rule, juvenile delinquency would be cut in half in a year's time.”

“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.”

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

“The difference between relief pitching when I did it today is simple, there is too much of it. It's one of those cases where more is not necessarily better.”

“I needed to join the Navy. If you ask the people in Europe who won World War II, they don't say the Allies, they say the United States won the war and saved the world.”

“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.”

“Where the ball went was up to heaven. Sometimes I threw the ball clean up into the stands.”

“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 did what any American could and should do: serve his country in its time of need.”

“Nobody lives forever and I've had a blessed life.”

“Ted Williams was the greatest hitter I ever saw, but DiMaggio was the greatest all around player.”

“I was only a gun captain on the battleship Alabama for 34 months. People have called me a hero for that, but I'll tell you this - heroes don't come home. Survivors come home.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I would rather beat the Yankees regularly than pitch a no hit game.”

“Life comes down to honesty and doing what's right. That's what's most important.”

“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.”