– “Stick it in his ear!”
– “Take a look at them. All nice guys. They’ll finish last. Nice guys – finish last.” – referring the the New York Giants’ prospects for the 1946 season.
– “This is not an eighth-place ballclub. – after being hired as manager of the Chicago Cubs, who had finished eighth the previous season, and proceeded to finish last in his first season”
– “I am not the manager of an eighth-place team.” – Durocher upon his appointment as the Chicago Cubs manager after the 1965 season. In 1966, the Cubs finished tenth.
– “When you’re in professional sports, winning is the only thing that matters.
I would have liked to go into the ninth inning with a two-run lead. I’d take my chances” – when questioned after the Dodgers lost a three-game playoff to the Giants in 1962
– “Strike out and keep the inning alive.”
– “Something went out of baseball when the Dodgers left Brooklyn, and neither all the king’s horses nor all the king’s men can ever put it back again.”
– “By my rules, the manager is the boss, and you respect him and you play like hell for him. If they weren’t going by my rules anymore, I didn’t have to go by theirs.”
– “The nice guys are all over there, in seventh place.”