Pride Of The Yankees Quotes

Can't introduce ya,' the feline admitted. 'Why not?' 'Don't know his name.' 'Snuggling up to a man y'all don't know. My momma was right. Yankees are whores.' 'Well, I know him,' MacDermot volumteered. The She-wolf stared at her. 'So?' 'You said y'all.' 'I didn't say 'all y'all.' So I wasn't talking to you.' 'I don't understand your country-speak,' McDermot complained, dropping into the desk chair across from Crush.

It doesn’t matter who you marry, as long as he thinks like you and is a gentleman and a Southerner and prideful. For a woman, love comes after marriage.” “Oh, Pa, that’s such an Old Country notion!” “And a good notion it is! All this American business of running around marrying for love, like servants, like Yankees! The best marriages are when the parents choose for the girl. For how can a silly piece like yourself tell a good man from a scoundrel?

Because for all of his big frame, loud voice and quick smile, Lou Gehrig was one of those strange souls born to be frustrated, to have glory and happiness always within his reach, yes, even to have it in his grasp, only to have it snatched away from him.

All the arguing in the world won't change the mind of the Umpire.

Throughout the South for fifty years there would be bitter-eyed women who looked backward, to dead times, to dead men, evoking memories that hurt and were futile, bearing poverty with bitter pride because they had those memories. But Scarlett was never to look back. She gazed at the blackened stones and, for the last time, she saw Twelve Oaks rise before her eyes as it had once stood, rich and proud, symbol of a race and a way of living. Then she started down the road toward Tara, the heavy basket cutting into her flesh. Hunger gnawed at her empty stomach again and she said aloud: “As God is my witness, as God is my witness, the Yankees aren’t going to lick me. I’m going to live through this, and when it’s over, I’m never going to be hungry again. No, nor any of my folks. If I have to steal or kill–as God is my witness, I’m never going to be hungry again.

The truth was, the nation as a body was in the world for one object, and one only: to grovel before king and Church and noble; to slave for them, sweat blood for them, starve that they might be fed, work that they might play, drink misery to the dregs that they might be happy, go naked that they might wear silks and jewels, pay taxes that they might be spared from paying them, be familiar all their lives with the degrading language and postures of adulation that they might walk in pride and think themselves the gods of this world. And for all this, the thanks they got were cuffs and contempt; and so poor-spirited were they that they took even this sort of attention as an honor.

Those Yankees made one huge mistake.  They couldn’t find a way to kill our resolve.  A Southerner’s pride runs deep, and we found the resolve to rebuild our way of life and Drayton Plantation with it.  This house and this land are symbols of what we have been through and what we have yet to become.

pretty soon Lou Gehrig was poling them high, wide and handsome over the college fences. He hit seven home runs in one season, one of them the longest ever seen at South Field, and batted over .540. And he won himself a new name. They called him the “Babe Ruth of Columbia.

Alex Rodriguez seemed not to fit in with the rest of his Yankee teammates. For instance, he wanted a clubhouse attendant personally assigned to him, when there were four or five for the whole team. Seeing the rift between him and the rest of the team and how Rodriguez's major focus on how HE was perceived, Joe Torre suggested in the individual meeting that Rodriguez at least get his own coffee rather than send someone to get it for him. Later that day, Alex Rodriguez made a point of telling the manager that he got his own coffee – drawing attention to himself, even in what was meant to be just an example of how he could fit in with normal behavior.

These women, so swift to kindness, so tender to the sorrowing, so untiring in times of stress, could be as implacable as furies to any renegade who broke one small law of their unwritten code. This code was simple. Reverence for the Confederacy, honor to the veterans, loyalty to old forms, pride in poverty, open hands to friends and undying hatred to Yankees. Between them, Scarlett and Rhett had outraged every tenet of this code.

On Alex Rodriguez's difficulty performing in clutch situations, Joe Torre writes, "In key situations, he can't get himself to concern himself with getting the job done instead of how it looks. There's a certain freefall you go through when you commit yourself without a guarantee that it's always going to be good. There's a trust and commitment thing that has to allow yourself fail, allow yourself to be embarrassed, allow yourself to be vulnerable

There has been considerable discussion as to how much, in cold cash, Lou Gehrig actually cost the New York Yankees. According to Gehrig, he received $500 for making the momentous decision to sign a contract with organized baseball. That $500 was the biggest sum of money that any of the Gehrigs had ever seen. It came at a time when it was desperately needed. It paid rent and doctors and hospital bills and nurses. It represented a sacrifice made by Gehrig, freely and unheroically and untheatrically. For that sorely needed $500 he sold his right and his chance to go on into that other world around whose fringes he had played the last two years.

And much as Lou loved his mother, his adoration of his Eleanor was out of this world. All the affection that had been denied him as a child, all the limitless affection he had to give on his own part and which had never had a chance to expand, came to a head in and about Eleanor. Strong as Mom was, Lou was stronger when it came to his determination to marry Eleanor, and the wedding was set for September, 1933, at the Long Island home of a friend of Eleanor’s. They were to live in an apartment in New Rochelle so as to be near Mom. Mom of course couldn’t understand why Lou didn’t go on living in the house with them so that she could cook and look after him as usual.

Darwin’s Bestiary PROLOGUE Animals tame and animals feral prowled the Dark Ages in search of a moral: the canine was Loyal, the lion was Virile, rabbits were Potent and gryphons were Sterile. Sloth, Envy, Gluttony, Pride—every peril was fleshed into something phantasmic and rural, while Courage, Devotion, Thrift—every bright laurel crowned a creature in some mythological mural. Scientists think there is something immoral in singular brutes having meat that is plural: beasts are mere beasts, just as flowers are floral. Yet between the lines there’s an implicit demurral; the habit stays with us, albeit it’s puerile: when Darwin saw squirrels, he saw more than Squirrel. 1. THE ANT The ant, Darwin reminded us, defies all simple-mindedness: Take nothing (says the ant) on faith, and never trust a simple truth. The PR men of bestiaries eulogized for centuries this busy little paragon, nature’s proletarian— but look here, Darwin said: some ants make slaves of smaller ants, and end exploiting in their peonages the sweating brows of their tiny drudges. Thus the ant speaks out of both sides of its mealy little mouth: its example is extolled to the workers of the world, but its habits also preach the virtues of the idle rich. 2. THE WORM Eyeless in Gaza, earless in Britain, lower than a rattlesnake’s belly-button, deaf as a judge and dumb as an audit: nobody gave the worm much credit till Darwin looked a little closer at this spaghetti-torsoed loser. Look, he said, a worm can feel and taste and touch and learn and smell; and ounce for ounce, they’re tough as wrestlers, and love can turn them into hustlers, and as to work, their labors are mythic, small devotees of the Protestant Ethic: they’ll go anywhere, to mountains or grassland, south to the rain forests, north to Iceland, fifty thousand to every acre guzzling earth like a drunk on liquor, churning the soil and making it fertile, earning the thanks of every mortal: proud Homo sapiens, with legs and arms— his whole existence depends on worms. So, History, no longer let the worm’s be an ignoble lot unwept, unhonored, and unsung. Moral: even a worm can turn. 3. THE RABBIT a. Except in distress, the rabbit is silent, but social as teacups: no hare is an island. (Moral: silence is golden—or anyway harmless; rabbits may run, but never for Congress.) b. When a rabbit gets miffed, he bounds in an orbit, kicking and scratching like—well, like a rabbit. (Moral: to thine own self be true—or as true as you can; a wolf in sheep’s clothing fleeces his skin.) c. He populates prairies and mountains and moors, but in Sweden the rabbit can’t live out of doors. (Moral: to know your own strength, take a tug at your shackles; to understand purity, ponder your freckles.) d. Survival developed these small furry tutors; the morals of rabbits outnumber their litters. (Conclusion: you needn’t be brainy, benign, or bizarre to be thought a great prophet. Endure. Just endure.) 4. THE GOSSAMER Sixty miles from land the gentle trades that silk the Yankee clippers to Cathay sift a million gossamers, like tides of fluff above the menace of the sea. These tiny spiders spin their bits of webbing and ride the air as schooners ride the ocean; the Beagle trapped a thousand in its rigging, small aeronauts on some elusive mission. The Megatherium, done to extinction by its own bigness, makes a counterpoint to gossamers, who breathe us this small lesson: for survival, it’s the little things that count.

Anyone who’s spent time below the Mason-Dixon line knows this truth: Southern women are anything but ordinary. Our unique, often unspoken code of conduct has allowed us to survive good times and bad, and never lose the sense of who we are. Margaret Mitchell, the belle of Southern female writers, got it right when she had Scarlett O’Hara come down the stairs in a dress made out of curtains: a Southern girl knows that pride and endurance always come before vanity. Our character is both created by, and essential to, the fabric of our society. Without the strength of the Southern girl, the South couldn’t have survived its rich and rocky history; without history, on the other hand, the Southern girl wouldn’t be who she is today. It’s sometimes suggested (by Yankees, we’d wager) that Grits are one-dimensional. This is not surprising: those who don’t understand us see only our outward devotion to femininity and charm. What they are missing is the fact that, like the magnolia tree, our beautiful blossoms are the outward expression of the strength that lies beneath.

There is something wrong here—too little day-to-day opposition, perhaps a tiny lack of pride, perhaps a trace of moneyed smugness. Whatever it is, it probably explains this year’s collapse and makes it certain that this Yankee team cannot be compared to the Ruffing-Gehrig-Dickey teams of the nineteen-thirties or the DiMaggio-Henrich-Rizzuto Yanks of the nineteen-forties and fifties. What made those Yankee teams so fearsome, so admirable, so hated was typified by the death-ray scowl that Allie Reynolds, their ace right-handed pitcher a decade ago, used to aim at an enemy slugger stepping into the box in a crucial game.

We are forced by the necessity of our condition,” they declared, “to take a step which is revolting to every sentiment of pride, and to every principle that governed our institutions before the war.” The enemy was “stealing our slaves and converting them into soldiers. . . . It is better for us to use the negroes for our defense than that the Yankees should use them against us.” Indeed, “we can make them fight better than the Yankees are able to do. Masters and overseers can marshal them for battle by the same authority and habit of obedience with which they are marshalled to labor.” It was true, admitted the Jackson Mississippian, that “such a step would revolutionize our whole industrial system” and perhaps lead to universal emancipation, “a dire calamity to both the negro and the white race.” But if we lose the war we lose slavery anyway, for “Yankee success is death to the institution . . . so that it is a question of necessity—a question of a choice of evils. . . . We must . . . save ourselves from the rapacious North, WHATEVER THE COST.”2

Adams disagreed. “I told Calhoun I could not see things in the same light.” And as he later reflected on the day’s discussion, he realized how thoroughly he disagreed with nearly everything Calhoun and the other Southerners said by way of defense of slavery. “It is, in truth, all perverted sentiment—mistaking labor for slavery, and dominion for freedom. The discussion of this Missouri question has betrayed the secret of their souls. In the abstract, they admit that slavery is an evil, they disclaim all participation in the introduction of it, and cast it all upon the shoulders of our old Grandam Britain. But when probed to the quick upon it, they show at the bottom of their souls pride and vainglory in their condition of masterdom. They fancy themselves more generous and noble-hearted than the plain freemen who labor for subsistence. They look down upon the simplicity of a Yankee’s manners, because he has no habit of overbearing like theirs and cannot treat negroes like dogs. It is among the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice; for what can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin? It perverts human reason, and reduces man endowed with logical powers to maintain that slavery is sanctioned by the Christian religion, that slaves are happy and contented in their condition, that between master and slave there are ties of mutual attachment and affection, that the virtues of the master are refined and exalted by the degradation of the slave; while at the same they vent execrations upon the slave-trade, curse Britain for having given them slaves, burn at the stake negroes convicted of crimes for the terror of the example, and write in agonies of fear at the very mention of human rights as applicable to men of color.” Adams had never pondered slavery at such length, and the experience made him fear for the future of the republic. “The impression produced upon my mind by the progress of this discussion is that the bargain between freedom and slavery contained in the Constitution of the United States is morally and politically vicious, inconsistent with the principles upon which alone our Revolution can be justified; cruel and oppressive, by riveting the chains of slavery, by pledging the faith of freedom to maintain and perpetuate the tyranny of the master; and grossly unequal and impolitic, by admitting that slaves are at once enemies to be kept in subjection, property to be secured or restored to their owners, and persons not to be represented themselves, but for whom their masters are privileged with nearly a double share of representation. The consequence has been that this slave representation has governed the Union.

The major failing was that during the last years of the Batista régime, Cuba became extremely corrupt. Havana became America’s adult playground and tourists were bringing in the “Yankee Dollar.” Construction companies with the right connections were busy building new gambling casinos and hotels. Girly shows, prostitution and gaming became widespread and people in the service industry made a good income. Those people that were involved in politics or supported Batista’s rise in wealth were raking in money beyond their wildest imagination. While the good times rolled, in the Sierra Maestra Mountains things were fermenting and the revolutionaries were gaining strength. Young people throughout the island were becoming actively involved. Older people, tired of the corruption and decadence, silently supported Fidel Castro. They may not have known what was in store for them, but they did know that Batista and his followers had hijacked their country, and they were willing to back the fresh wind blowing down from the mountains. As the revolution heated up, the Policía Nacional and Batista’s spy network headed by the Military Intelligence Service, Servicio de Inteligencia Militar, resorted to torture and executions. The newspapers always cited that the bodies found alongside remote roads, railroad tracks or ditches, were shot by unknown persons. The bombs that were heard exploding at night reminded people that these were not normal times. Political enemies of the régime were rounded up and taken to police detention centers located around Havana. Special tribunals, Tribunales de Urgencia, were set up to deal with these prisoners. Since these jails were under the control of the local police, there was little or no accountability. Notorious police precincts such as the ones commanded by Captains Ventura and Carratalá prided themselves on the torturous pain they could inflict, using extremely imaginative methods. Most Cubans feared the police and it seemed that everyone knew of someone who had fallen into their clutches, many of whom were later found dead.

Now, even in the growing days of his success, he was girl shy. His mother was all he wanted. He did not realize it, but this was to cause him heartache later when the thing happened he did not ever believe or dream would happen … that he would fall happily in love.

In 1925 a benchwarming rookie. In 1926 a hard hitting regular playing in a world series on a championship team. And in 1927 he was already daring to challenge Babe Ruth for the home run championship.

The boys who write the sports stories knew what was going on and who was doing what. On October 12, 1927, they voted Lou Gehrig the most valuable player in the American League. You see, it was Lou Gehrig who forced the pitchers to pitch to Babe Ruth.

But Gehrig reported in later life that they weren’t very nice to him. He was a brother all right, but he wasn’t quite as much of a brother as some of the other lads whose mothers weren’t cooks. The boys managed somehow to convey that fine distinction to him. It was the first time that the big, rough, dumb Dutchman butted into the wall reared by the so-called upper classes. It bled a little where he hit, and left a scar. In fact, the brothers never did warm up to him until he became the famous Yankee first baseman and heir to the throne of Babe Ruth. Then they would come around and give him the grip and remember the good old days in the frat house and how jolly it all was.

And finally they offered that heart-breaking pair of ball busters, George Herman Ruth and Henry Louis Gehrig. Did you ever see them play? Brother, you saw a ball team. You also saw as grand and mad and wild, and goofy a collection of baseball ivory as was ever collected together under one tent. This isn’t designed particularly as a Sunday School take for tiny tots, so I’ll tell you with considerable joy in the telling that the Yanks of those years were a drinking ball club. They like their likker. And they gave Miller Huggins many a headache. But drinks or no drinks, they won those pennants and those world series games, and they patted that apple.

When baseball is bread and butter, you never question a man’s eccentricities as long as he continues to carry his weight and can hoist one into Railroad Street outside the park, when blue chips are down. I’m trying to give you a picture of those Yanks, and of Lou. And I am also trying to give you an unnamby-pamby picture of baseball as it is, or at least as it was in those days. It isn’t a game played for the sweet joy of sport by Sunday School book characters, but a rough, competitive game played as a profession and a business by a bunch of tough, hard bitted men who were and are just like any other groups of men. In a group of twenty or thirty players you find all kinds. That Lou Gehrig was an ascetic, practically, in his manner of living, was purely a matter of his own personal choice. No one actually demanded it of him.

But the story of what happened to Lou, that first game and what he said, does happen to be true. Running down to second base, he got into the line of the last half of a double play. The ball hit him squarely on the forehead and knocked him senseless. They doused him with water and when he came to, he was asked whether he wanted to get out of the game. Lou looked up grimly and said … “Hell no! It’s taken me three years to get into this game. It’s going to take more than a crack on the head to get me out.” How prophetic, tragically prophetic, his words were.

Lou did nothing naturally. Everything came the hard and tortuous way. Practice, practice, practice until he did it right, and then practice some more to keep it right. In the meantime, the Yankees were going places. And so was Gehrig, and with him his family. These were great days for Mom, for Lou took care of her. He more than took care of her. He idolized her. He brought her into the publicity lime-light with him as his best girl and his sweetheart. He bought her a fine house in New Rochelle with his World Series earnings, and made her mistress of it. Whenever anybody asked Lou about a girl or whether he had a sweetheart he would say … “Yes, my Mom.

What was happening was not exactly calculated to make the boy happy, or gregarious. On the contrary. He withdrew still further within himself. He became more shy and self-accusing. He was convinced that he was no good for anything and never would be.

And what was Lou Gehrig doing on a team like that? How did he fit in? What was he like? Why he was doing as he pleased. And it pleased him neither to drink, nor to wench, or to stay out late. And he nudged the pellet just the same, because life is like that. Some do and some don’t. Lou liked his straight. And the other guys respected him for it. And they didn’t kid him about it either. Because on a ball club, really to kid a guy you ought to be able to lick him in case he gets sore. And there wasn’t anybody on the outfit who cherished notions of pushing Lou Gehrig around. But besides, nobody wanted to.

Pride of the Yankees invented the visual grammar of the baseball film, discovering and employing editing techniques to turn a movie star with little baseball experience into a reasonable facsimile of one of the most talented players of all time. In later years, these techniques were used to make actors as disparate as John Cusack (Eight Men Out), Rosie O’Donnell (A League of Their Own), and Bernie Mac (Mr. 3000) look like they’re zinging line drives all over the field.