"After Jackie Robinson the most important black in baseball history is Reggie Jackson, I really mean that." - Reggie Jackson

"After the game, Jackie Robinson came into our clubhouse and shook my hand. He said, 'You're a helluva ballplayer and you've got a great future.' I thought that was a classy gesture, one I wasn't then capable of making. I was a bad loser. What meant even more was what Jackie told the press, ' Mantle beat us. He was the difference between the two teams. They didn't miss DiMaggio .' I have to admit, I became a Jackie Robinson fan on the spot. And when I think of that world Series, his gesture is what comes to mind. Here was a player who had without doubt suffered more abuse and more taunts and more hatred than any player in the history of the game. And he had made a special effort to compliment and encourage a young white kid from Oklahoma." - Mickey Mantle

"All of us had to wait for Jackie." - Pitcher Joe Black

"Every time I look at my pocketbook, I see Jackie Robinson ." - Willie Mays

"Give me five players like Robinson and a pitcher and I'll beat any nine-man team in baseball." - Manager Chuck Dressen

"He led America by example. He reminded our people of what was right and he reminded them of what was wrong. I think it can be safely said today that Jackie Robinson made the United States a better nation." - American League President Gene Budig

"He knew he had to do well. He knew that the future of blacks in baseball depended on it. The pressure was enormous, overwhelming, and unbearable at times. I don't know how he held up. I know I never could have." - Duke Snider

"He struck a mighty blow for equality, freedom and the American way of life. Jackie Robinson was a good citizen, a great man, and a true American champion." - President Ronald Reagan

"He was a therapist for the masses by succeeding, by doing it with such style, flair and drama. He helped level baseball off, to make it truly a game for black and white, with excellence the only test for success." - Jesse Jackson

"He was the greatest competitor I've ever seen. I've seen him beat a team with his bat, his ball, his glove, his feet and, in a game in Chicago one time, with his mouth." - Duke Snider

"He was the only player I ever saw in a rundown who could be safe more often than out. He ran as if his head was on a swizzle, back and forth, back and forth, until he could get out of it." - Bobby Bragan

"I don't care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a fucking zebra. I'm the manager of this team and I say he plays." - Leo Durocher

"If it wasn't for him the Dodgers would be in the second division." - Red Schoendienst

"If I were in Jackie Robinson's shoes, I probably never would have made it." - Bob Gibson

"In baseball, there is something electrifying about the big leagues. I had read so much about Musial , Williams and Robinson . I had put those guys on a pedestal. They were something special. I really thought they put their pants on different, rather than one leg at a time." - Hank Aaron

"Jackie Robinson is the loneliest man I have ever seen in sports." - Sportswriter Jimmy Cannon

"Jackie Robinson was the best athlete ever to play Major League Baseball." - Ralph Kiner

"Jackie, we've got no army. There's virtually nobody on our side. No owners, no umpires, very few newspapermen. And I'm afraid that many fans will be hostile. We'll be in a tough position. We can win only if we can convince the world that I'm doing this because you're a great ballplayer, a fine gentleman." - Branch Rickey

"Robinson did not merely play at center stage. He was center stage; and wherever he walked, center stage moved with him." - Roger Kahn in The Boys of Summer

"There was never a man in the game who could put mind and muscle together quicker and with better judgment than Robinson ." - Branch Rickey

"They call his name in a way no other player's name is called. They plead to shake his hand or ask for his autograph. They touch his clothes as he walks by, unhurrying, pleasant, friendly, cooperative, because Jackie has never lost sight of what the game has meant to him, and what he has meant, means now, and will always mean to his people." - Milton Gross

"Thinking about the things that happened, I don't know any other ball player who could have done what he did. To be able to hit with everybody yelling at him. He had to block all that out, block out everything but this ball that is coming in at a hundred miles an hour. To do what he did has got to be the most tremendous thing I've ever seen in sports." - Shortstop Pee Wee Reese

"When he joined the major leagues, Jackie said, he made clear to baseball commissioner Branch Rickey that he would not suffer physical attack. 'I told Mr. Rickey that if a pitcher hits me intentionally with a fastball, his ass belongs to me. And if a second baseman strikes me intentionally, his ass belongs to me.' Apparently the warning was passed down the line. 'When we went to St. Louis and faced the gashouse gang, the pitcher Burley Grimes threw a fastball that hit me,' Jackie recalled. 'I lay my bat down and started toward the pitcher. He said, 'God Jackie, I didn't mean that!' So the word got down the league. They called me names, but I expected those. But nobody hit me intentionally.'" - Author Truman K. Gibson Jr. & Steve Huntley in Knocking Down Barriers: My Fight for Black America (Northwestern University Press, 09/07/2005, Page 278)

"Whether your name is Gehrig or Ripken , DiMaggio or Robinson , or that of some youngster who picks up his bat or puts on his glove, you are challenged by the game of baseball to do your very best day in and day out. That's all I've ever tried to do." - Cal Ripken, Jr.