It takes more than videotape to truly preserve the memories of any baseball season. It also takes the voices that sum it all up through the brilliant comedic pearls that roll off their tongues.
So join with us now as we unfurl our favorite entries in the 2009 edition of our Essential Baseball Quotebook:
Five Memorable Quotes of the Year
• Sandy Guerrero on the 503-foot home run he served up to Prince Fielder in the Home Run Derby:
"It sounded like a cannon. Not as loud, but very crispy."
• From Zack Greinke, after being informed by Year in Review emissaries that it had been so long since the National League won an All-Star Game, the last time it won one (1996), Ozzie Smith played in it:
"Yeah. And probably Stan Musial, too."
• From Nationals masher Adam Dunn, a man who hit his 18th homer on the night the Nationals won their 18th game of the year, on the possibility of hitting more homers this season than his team had wins:
"It's OK with me, I guess -- as long as I hit about 85 homers."
• From the Kung Fu Panda himself, Pablo Sandoval, to the San Francisco Chronicle's Henry Schulman, on his lovable inclination to take a hack at every pitch he sees:
"That is the Pablo that I am."
• And from Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's La Velle E. Neal III, after being informed that the Vikings and Packers had no intention of moving their "Monday Night Football" game to accommodate a division-deciding Twins-Tigers playoff game next week:
"Both those teams, I have a lot of them on my fantasy team. I don't want to ruin their game. It might cost me a fantasy win."
Farewell To The Metrodome Quote of the Year
It was every AL team's favorite House of Horrors. The roof was the same color as the baseball. The turf was as hard as an interstate highway. And the most affectionate words ever uttered about the soon-to-be late, great Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis came from the mouth of then-Royals GM John Schuerholz in 1984:
"The only thing that can solve the Metrodome's problems is a nuclear bomb."
But our favorite adoring Metrodome quote from this year came Sept. 2. On that day, one minute the White Sox were down to their last out ever in the Dome, two runs behind with Joe Nathan on the mound. The next, they'd somehow become the first team ever to hit back-to-back homers off Nathan and actually won their finale 4-2.
Before that outburst, they'd won two of their previous 18 games in the Dome. Right -- two of 18. So after high-fiving it up, the White Sox's Paul Konerko stomped back to his locker, looked up and told the Chicago Sun-Times' Joe Cowley (not too seriously):
"We own this place."
Quote That Summed Up the Mets' Year
They dropped popups with two outs in the ninth. They forgot to tag third base on the way to scoring the winning run. They're going to finish last in the major leagues in homers. And they put 98 different players on the disabled list at one time or another. (OK, so it was actually only 18.) So it wasn't a very upbeat year for the New York Mets.
But through it all, they kept trying to insist everything was fine -- as exemplified by this tongue-in-cheek quip (we think) from manager Jerry Manuel after Gary Sheffield had to exit a July 17 game with some sort of hamstring injury:
"They're calling it cramps -- surgery on Thursday."
Senatorial Quotes of the Year
After the always-entertaining Curt Schilling floated the idea of running for Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, the Boston Globe's Nick Cafardo collected these brilliant quips from his old friends, the Red Sox, on the prospect of having a Senator Schilling:
• From Dustin Pedroia, on what Schilling would bring to the Senate:
"A big appetite."
• And from GM Theo Epstein on Senator Schill's foremost qualification:
"He would be good at filibustering."
Ichiro Suzuki Quotes of the Year
He may not hail from anywhere near Kansas -- or even Hollywood, for that matter. But nobody turns a phrase quite like the Mariners' 200-hit assembly line Ichiro Suzuki. His best of 2009:
• Third prize: After the shocking May 15 game in which he hit two home runs off Red Sox left-hander Jon Lester:
"It goes to prove in the universe, mysterious things happen."
• Second prize: To our pal Jim Caple on whether Ichiro could see himself becoming a DH some day as he closes in on age 40:
"I think one of the requirements for being a DH is weighing at least 200 pounds, so maybe if I was that heavy I would do it. [But] the day I weigh 200 pounds is the day I'm inside a coffin."
• First prize: To The New York Times' Brad Lefton, on why all his infield hits are underrated:
"Chicks who dig home runs aren't the ones who appeal to me. I think there's sexiness in infield hits because they require technique. I'd rather impress the chicks with my technique than with my brute strength. Then, every now and then, just to show I can do that, too, I might flirt a little by hitting one out."
Ozzie Guillen Quotes of the Year
The best Rants of Ozzie 2009, courtesy of the Chicago Sun-Times' Joe Cowley:
• Fifth prize: On arriving at the park on a September Saturday and finding his players watching college football instead of talking baseball:
"I'm not in a pennant race, but at least I have some pride and at least I have something to fight for and at least I have something to show up to this ballpark and play [for]. And when you go out there and you turn your TV on and watch stupid [Xpgfdzh-ing] football, when those [Xpgfdzh-ing] football players don't give a [Xpgfdzh] about you, that's embarrassing."
• Fourth prize: On his love affair with Wrigley Field:
"I wish I could do something about it. The governor of Chicago, please build another one."
• Third prize: In the midst of the White Sox's suicidal 1-9 collapse in late August:
"I was looking at the Little League game this morning, 11 to 13 and they were playing better than we did."
• Second prize: Later in the same rant:
"If we had a 'B' Game against us, we might tie."
• First prize: On falling into third place for good in September:
"This is a tease, man. It's like when you have a girlfriend and you are kissing her all over the place and you get to the Mambo, and she say no. That's where we are right now."
Joe Maddon Quotes of the Year
The Best of 2009, courtesy of the St. Petersburg Times' Marc Topkin, from the Rays' walking thesaurus, a manager who used all these words in assorted quotes just this year: quantum regenerate false analyzation paranormal activity eradicate ongoing malady thicket.
• Third prize: On the July night he surprisingly decided to start utility man Willy Aybar against Zack Greinke -- and Aybar went 4-for-4:
"Free Willy."
• Second prize: After the final game of the 2-9 September road trip that essentially ended his team's season:
"It's always good to go home, in spite of what Thomas Wolfe may have said."
• First prize: On what seemed, at the time, like a season-saving comeback win over the Red Sox on Sept. 2:
"You just can't quit. You just can't stop. You can't stop grinding. You can't stop pushing. You never know when that moment's going to occur. You never know when you're making a memory; I think Rickie Lee Jones said that at one point."
Late-Night Quotes of the Year
• Fifth prize: (From David Letterman):
"Congratulations to the New York Yankees. Clinched their playoff berth. It just goes to show you what grit, hustle and a half a billion dollars will do."
• Fourth prize: (From Conan O'Brien):
"Manny Ramirez is playing for a Triple-A minor league baseball team while he serves out his suspension for using female fertility drugs. So far, Manny's gone hitless. But in Manny's defense, it is that time of month."
• Third prize: (From Stephen Colbert, on the downside of a new robot invented by Japanese engineers that can throw strikes on 90 percent of all its pitches and bat 1.000 against pitches in the strike zone):
"Who wants to read about a baseball player cheating on his wife with a toaster oven?"
• Second prize: (From David Letterman):
"Right here on CBS, we have 'The Ghost Whisperer.' Each week, she runs errands for dead people. And on tonight's show, she booked vacations for the Mets."
• First prize: (From Letterman):
"Paul McCartney is here tonight. Paul's going to be in town this week doing two shows this weekend out at Citi Field, home of the Mets. The reason he's doing the two shows at Citi Field, home of the Mets, is that he hopes from those concerts to raise enough money to buy a couple of tickets to go see the Yankees."
Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com. His new book, "Worth The Wait: Tales of the 2008 Phillies," was published by Triumph Books and is available in bookstores and online. Click here to order a copy.