Horse Racing
__________________________________________
Secretariat – June 7, 1973
"Now it’s the week of the Belmont Stakes, and Secretariat, the horse, has
been on the cover of Time, Newsweek, the Blood Horse, Sports Illustrated, and he
looks like a $6-million steal. His stud book will be busier than a sultan’s.
If he loses the Belmont, he’s going to take more money with him than a bank
president absconding to Rio."
Seattle Slew – June 12, 1977
"Slew was a compassionate horse. He never beat anybody more than he had to.
He was like a poker player who lets you keep your watch and carfare home."
November 22, 1973 – I’m thankful for Secretariat – but I wish he had to keep
working for a living like the rest of us. Early retirement might be OK – but
at age three?!
"I’ve been covering horse races for 25 years and I still can’t tell a colt
from a filly except under very special circumstances.
"A racetrack crowd comprises the greatest floating fund of misinformation
this side of the pages of Pravada, the last virgin stand of optimism in our
century."
Golf
__________________________________________
On Charlie Sifford - January 9, 1969
"Golf was not a game for the ghettos. Neither did it leave any time for
carrying picket signs, joining demonstrations, or running for office. Charlie
birdied, not talked, his way through society prejudice."
" I don’t know whether you know it or not, but a golfer on the scent of new
clubs makes Don Juan look like a dependable, 9-5 type, the marrying kind. A
golfer looking for new clubs is like Joe Namath on a pickup. He’ll dance with
every girl at the prom."
"The club has a natural instinct for trouble. It’s a born outlaw. If it
were human, it’d be robbing banks."
"When it comes to golf, I root for the course. In rodeos I root for the
bulls. I’m a big fan of double bogeys. I love it when the weather at Pebble
Beach is blowing a force ten gale and the flags are bent horizontal in the wind.
I love unputtable greens."
On Arnold Palmer -
"He was the greatest long putter who ever lived…He attacked the game of golf
like a cop busting a crap game."
On Eldrick "Tiger" Woods - November 28, 1996
"Golf is now a five-letter word. It's spelled "W-O-O-D-S."
Baseball
__________________________________________
On Sandy Koufax – August 31, 1961
"In a game where the vocabulary runs to four-letter words and the vocal range
registers from loud to hoarse, Sandy is articulate and soft-spoken. Where
the musical tastes run to rock’n’roll or hillbilly gut-bucket, Sandy prefers
Mendelssohn and Beethoven."
On Pete Rose - January 13, 1991
"Pete Rose played the game for 24 years with the little boy’s zeal and wonder
until, if you closed your eyes, you could picture him with his cap on
sideways, knickers falling down to his ankles and dragging a taped ball and busted
bat behind him, looking for all the world like something that fell off Norman
Rockwell’s easel."
On Casey Stengel – October 1, 1975
"There was a lot of little boy in Casey, the eternal kid-at-a-circus. He was
the world’s oldest 9-year-old."
"Catching a fly ball, or hitting a curved one, is not all that difficult. It
may rank in difficulty somewhere below juggling Indian clubs and above
playing an ocarina."
Hockey
__________________________________________
November 23, 1978 –
"Hockey is the only game that can be played equally well with the lights out.
There’s more to hockey than meets the eye – at least I hope so."
On Gordie Howe – March 14, 1968
"You ask a Canadian about Gordie Howe and the first thing he does is take his
hat off and place it carefully over his heart. His eyes film up, this lump
comes to his throat, and you get the eerie feeling that Citizen Howe is at
least one of the 12 Apostles. He wasn’t born, he was found in the bulrushes."
"Seeing a goal scored in hockey is like picking your mother out of a crowd
shot at the Super Bowl."
"Hockey is the Bloody Mary of sports."
"There are two ways to play hockey: you can knock the puck off the player –
or you can knock the player off the puck."
