It's a Team Game...
Sort Of
Chemistry, intangibles, and whether this player or that one is a "team player" get a lot of ink and bandwidth. Here are a few opinions.
Only in baseball can a team player be a pure individualist first and a team player second, within the rules and spirit of the game.
-- Branch Rickey
You need talent. Chemistry doesn't win games. You don't go out and recruit chemistry, you recruit talent.
-- Brian Sabean
The more self-centered and egotistical a guy is, the better ballplayer he's going to be. You take a team with twenty-five assholes and I'll show you a pennant. I'll show you the New York Yankees.
-- Bill Lee
Go with the best you've got. A lot of people were talking about a matter of personalities, or that so-and-so's in the doghouse. To me, that's the most asinine statement anybody could make.
-- Al Lopez
Did that guy write those figures down, or did he do it? He got this by doing it.
-- Sparky Anderson, on judging a player by his stats
A manager who cannot get along with a .400 hitter ought to have his head examined.
-- Joe McCarthy, on managing Ted Williams
You don't say anything to a .400 hitter except, "How do you do, sir."
-- Joe McCarthy, when asked if he would make Williams wear a tie on road trips
Players in baseball are like the links in a chain, the chain being no stronger than its weakest link. They perform their actions not so much in unison as serially.
-- Michael Novak
Chemistry is an integral part of winning, but it's not the most important part. Talent is. Talent rules in big league baseball. Without it, you can't compete over a 162-game season.
-- Cal Ripken Jr., The Only Way I Know
You can't win 'em in the clubhouse.
-- Jim Brosnan
Yeah, and we're missing a little geography and arithmetic around here, too.
-- Whitey Herzog, on "poor chemistry" in the St. Louis clubhouse
When you're winning, they say you have aggressive players when they spout off. When you're losing, they call it dissension.
-- Harry Walker
In the end it all comes down to talent. You can talk all you want about intangibles, I just don't know what that means. Talent makes winners, not intangibles. Can nice guys win? Sure, nice guys can win -- if they're nice guys with a lot of talent. Nice guys with a little talent finish fourth, and nice guys with no talent finish last.
-- Sandy Koufax, in his autobiography, Koufax
There aren't losing players, there are only players with bad statistics. At the end of the season you try to improve your team by taking the players with bad stats and seeing if you can get someone who will do better in those positions.
-- Earl Weaver
I stand by my belief that individual performances are the most important part of baseball. Give me nine guys building good statistics, and I'll show you a good club.
-- Earl Weaver
If the MVP is an individual award, then why not give it to an individual? But if it's all about giving the MVP to the first-place team, then hand out 25 MVP awards.
-- Larry Walker
It seems that any team with great pitching has good chemistry.
-- Brady Anderson, 1997