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"A sense of humor (needs for successful manager) and a good bullpen."
"Baseball has been good to me since I quit trying to play it."
"Down there (New Athens, Illinois), we've got more taverns than grocery stores. I walked in, threw down a bill and said, 'Give everybody a drink.' Nice gesture I thought, but down the bar somebody yelled, 'Hey big shot, your brother is still a better ballplayer than you are.'"
Herzog's Rules
1. Be on time.
2. Bust your butt.
3. Play smart.
4. Have some laughs while you're at it.
"If you don't have outstanding relief pitching, you might as well piss on the fire and call the dogs."
"I'm not buddy-buddy with the players. If they need a buddy, let them buy a dog."
"Some people asked me if I would be interested in managing the A's. I said a definite no thank you. At night, that place is a graveyard with lights."
"The only thing bad about winning the pennant is that you have to manage the All-Star Game the next year. I'd rather go fishing for three days."
"The only way to make money as a manager is to win in one place, get fired and hired somewhere else."
"The rules are changed now, there's not any way to build a team today. It's just how much money you want to spend. You could be the world champions and somebody else makes a key acquisition or two and you're through."
"The way we have been playing, I might tell my players not to cross the picket line (umpire strike of 1979)."
"We need just two players to be a contender. Just Babe Ruth and Sandy Koufax."
"We need three kinds of pitching: left handed, right handed, and relief."
"What counts aren't the number of double plays, but the ones you should have had and missed."
"You sweat out the free agent thing in November then you make the trades in December. Then you struggle to sign the guys left in January and in February I get down to sewing all the new numbers on the uniforms."
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