Sparky Lyle

"I know what kind of pitcher Whitey was, and I know what kind of person Whitey is. It makes me feel proud to be a Yankee. We're keeping this in the family."

"He pitches better when he's mad, so I try to make him that way."

"They killed my grandfather, they killed my father, and now they're coming for me."

"I'd like to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee."

"If the people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them."

"If I played in New York, they'd name a candy bar after me."

"No, I never threw a spitball. Except when I had to get someone out really bad."

"At nighttime, you just try to keep him out of jail."

"You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around ..."

"Owning the Yankees is like owning the Mona Lisa."

"Everything looks nicer when you win. The girls are prettier. The cigars taste better. The trees are greener."

"Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa."

"Why pitch nine innings when you can get just as famous pitching two?"

"When you go to other parks, they hang banners for the wild-card or Eastern Division or Western Division champions. Around here, they don't hang anything unless its for being world champions."

"Have faith in the Yankees, my son."

"When I was a little boy, I wanted to be a baseball player and join a circus. With the Yankees I've accomplished both."

"I hated the Yankees and Dodgers and wound up managing both."

"True Yankees are born, not made."

"You see, the Mets are losers, just like nearly everybody else in life. This is the team for the cab driver who gets held up … for every guy who has to get out of bed in the morning and go to work for short money on a job he does not like … The Yankees? Who does well enough to root for them, Laurence Rockefeller?”

"Playing for Yogi is like playing for your father — playing for Billy is like playing for your father-in-law."

"I never knew how someone who was dying could say he was the luckiest man in the world. But now I understand."