YANKEES Talk: A Sampler

George Steinbrenner trashes Derek Jeter. Joe Torre strokes George Steinbrenner. Bernie Williams rationalizes George Steinbrenner's take and talk about Jeter.

"It's part of growing up. You can't expect a whole career to be smooth all the time. If this is the only thing he {Derek Jeter} has to worry about in his career, he's lucky." -- Bernie Williams

Yankee talk is as much a part of the program as the pinstripes on their uniforms. Now, forever and through the decades past - there has always been someone, friend or foe at the ready, with a one liner, a quick quip or (hyper) extended verbiage on the team from the Bronx. What follows is a sampler.

"I would rather beat the Yankees regularly than pitch a no-hit game." - Bob Feller

"It was a death struggle every day being a Yankee - you either won or you lost. There was no second place. Half of us were nuts by the end of a season." - Jerry Coleman

"When I was a player and we would play the Yankees in spring training, even though the game didn't mean anything, it was a special day." - Joe Torre

"I wish I'd never see them again. I wish they'd disappear from the league." Pedro Martinez, Boston Red Sox

"Hating the Yankees is as American as pizza pie and cheating on your income tax." - Columnist Mike Royko

"Going north from spring training, we'd pass through small towns and people would be out there early in the morning as the train went by, waving to us. I don't know how they got the word - but we'd be having our breakfast in the diner and they'd be there." - Jerry Coleman

"You kind of took it for granted around the Yankees that there was always going to be baseball in October." - Whitey Ford

"This isn't just a ball club! This is Murderers Row!" - sportswriter Arthur Robinson, 1927

"There has never been anything like it. Even as these lines are batted out on the office typewriter, youths dash out of the AP and UP ticker room every two or three minutes shouting, 'Ruth hit one! Gehrig hit another one!' " - sportswriter Paul Gallico

"I was known as a Yankee killer. My best year against them was 1953. I beat them five times and shut them out four times. You just played a little harder against them." - Mel Parnell

"Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel." - Joe E. Lewis

"Rooting for the Yankees is like owning a yacht." - Jimmy Cannon

"The majority of American males put themselves to sleep by striking out the batting order of the New York Yankees." - James Thurber

"They have, what, 26 World Series titles? But that doesn't mean they are going to beat us. We deserve to be here as much as they do. I'm not trying to get Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig or Mickey Mantle out. I'm trying to get the Yankees' lineup out today." - Curt Schilling of Arizona, before Game One, 2001 World Series

"When my Yankee career is over I'll play anywhere, but I'm positive that I'll never find a team quite like the Yankees." -Bernie Williams

"All literary men are Red Sox fans. To be a Yankee fan in literary society is to endanger your life." - John Cheever

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