Top 35 Willie Mays Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “What you are thinking, what shape your mind is in, is what makes the biggest difference of all.”

— Willie Mays

2. “It isn’t hard to be good from time to time in sports. What is tough, is being good every day.”

— Willie Mays

3. “In order to excel, you must be completely dedicated.”

— Willie Mays

4. “In order to excel, you must be completely dedicated to your chosen sport. You must also be prepared to work hard and be willing to accept constructive criticism. Without one-hundred percent dedication, you won’t be able to do this.”

— Willie Mays

5. “They throw the ball, I hit it. They hit the ball, I catch it.”

— Willie Mays

6. “What’s tough is being good every day.”

— Willie Mays

7. “Defense to me is the key to playing baseball.”

— Willie Mays

8. “I think I was the best baseball player I ever saw.”

— Willie Mays

9. “I don’t rate them, I just hit them.”

— Willie Mays

10. “I’m not the type of guy to go out and just say, ‘Hey, I’m raising my fist to do this and do that.’ I don’t think I’m that type of guy. I wasn’t a leader the way other people may have wanted me to be.”

— Willie Mays

11. “When I’m not hitting, I don’t hit nobody. But, when I’m hitting, I hit anybody.”

— Willie Mays

12. “The greatest challenge I think is adjusting to not playing baseball. The reason for that is I had to come out of baseball and come into the business world, not being a college graduate, not being educated to come into the business world the way I should have.”

— Willie Mays

13. “Maybe I was born to play ball. Maybe I truly was.”

— Willie Mays

14. “I was very fortunate to play sports. All the anger in me went out. I had to do what I had to do. If you stay angry all the time, then you really don’t have a good life.”

— Willie Mays

15. “I’m a very lucky guy. I had so many people help me over the years that I never had many problems. If I had a problem, I could sit down with someone and they would explain the problem to me, and the problem become like a baseball game.”

— Willie Mays

16. “I was very blessed with a good body. Never got hurt. Never was in the hospital. The only time I was in the hospital was when I would get exhausted a little bit, and go in for a check-up or something.”

— Willie Mays

17. “Every time I look at my pocketbook, I see Jackie Robinson.”

— Willie Mays

18. “If cows wouldn’t eat it, I won’t play on it.”

— Willie Mays

19. “Baseball is a game, yes. It is also a business. But what is most truly is is disguised combat. For all its gentility, its almost leisurely pace, baseball is violence under wraps.”

— Willie Mays

20. “I played with the Birmingham Black Barons. I was making 500 at 14. That was a lot of money in those days.”

— Willie Mays

21. “When I was in Birmingham I used to go to a place called Redwood Field. I used to get there for a two o’clock game. Where can you make this kind of money playing sports? It was just a pleasure to go out and enjoy myself and get paid for it.”

— Willie Mays

22. “That’s how easy baseball was for me. I’m not trying to brag or anything, but I had the knowledge before I became a professional baseball player to do all these things and know what each guy would hit.”

— Willie Mays

23. “Never assume the other guy will never do something you would never do.”

— Willie Mays

24. “Baseball is a game, yes. It is also a business.”

— Willie Mays

25. “I always enjoyed playing ball, and it didn’t matter to me whether I played with white kids or black. I never understood why an issue was made of who I played with, and I never felt comfortable, when I grew up, telling other people how to act.”

— Willie Mays

26. “I don’t mean to be bashful, but I was.”

— Willie Mays

27. “At ten I was playing against 18-year-old guys. At 15 I was playing professional ball with the Birmingham Black Barons, so I really came very quickly in all sports.”

— Willie Mays

28. “I was a baseball player, I taught baseball, and all of a sudden I was in the business world. Now I used the baseball world to talk about their product. Not too much, just enough to keep going. Just be yourself and you’ll never have a problem. That’s what I did.”

— Willie Mays

29. “In 1950, when the Giants signed me, they gave me $15,000. I bought a 1950 Mercury. I couldn’t drive, but I had it in the parking lot there, and everybody that could drive would drive the car. So it was like a community thing.”

— Willie Mays

30. “Youngsters of Little League can survive undercoaching a lot better than overcoaching.”

— Willie Mays

31. “If you can do that – if you run, hit, run the bases, hit with power, field, throw and do all other things that are part of the game – then you’re a good ballplayer.”

— Willie Mays

32. “Yes, I had to learn how to live life outside, but I had so many people help me.”

— Willie Mays

33. “I would try and help everybody, because the game was so easy for me. It was just like walking in the park.”

— Willie Mays

34. “Congratulations to Alex Rodriguez on his 660th home run, milestones in baseball are meant to be broken and I wish him continued success throughout his career.”

— Willie Mays

35. “I didn’t teach you that. Catch the ball with your glove.”

— Willie Mays

36. “I think I was programmed to do good things when I came into the majors. I knew how to play.”

— Willie Mays

37. “When I got to professional ball I used to play 150 games every year. It depends on how many games there was.”

— Willie Mays