"A great player will wear it now."
His retort to Giants' manager John McGraw. The story goes that when Hack came up to the majors, the New York clubhouse attendent could not find a uniform to fit his odd dimensions. McGraw gave Hack his old uniform, telling him "
Don't disgrace that uniform. A great player once wore it. Me!"
"I've never played drunk; hung over, yes, but never drunk."
Hack on his drinking habits.
"It proves if you drink whiskey, you won't get worms!"
Infamous reply to Cubs' manager Joe McCarthy. Joe was said to have set up a demonstration for Hack's benefit involving a glass of water and a glass of whiskey. He then dropped a worm in each glass. The worm in the whiskey soon died, while the worm in the water continued to wiggle. Joe then asked Hack what this proved.
"Looks like I'm the big chump of the series. I play good ball all season, and in the most important game I'm ever in I blow up. The bugs will have all winter in which to think up wise cracks to hand me next season, and I won't be able to do anything except tip my cap to the greetings."
Accepting the role of the goat after missing two fly balls in the sun during the Cubs great "Mack Attack" collapse in Game 2 of the 1929 World Series. The Cubs surrendered an 8 run lead, giving up 10 ten runs in the 7th inning, to lose to the Philadelphia Athletics 10-8.
"It starts out like a baseball and when it gets to the plate, it looks like a marble."
Hack's description of a Satchel Paige fastball. Paige is said to have replied "That must have been my slowball. My fastball looks like a fish egg."
"There are many kids in and out of baseball who think that just because they have some natural talent, they have the world by the tail. It isn't so. In life you need many more things besides talent. Things like good advice and common sense.''
Remarks on the radio program "We the People," uttered a week before his death. These words are framed and on display in the Cubs locker room even today.
"Mr. Wilson has been doing nothing in particular to avoid enlargement of the waistline. As befitting his rank of home run slugger of the National league he has been getting most of his exercise out of driving a car. Hack will find to his sorrow that the kind of driving he'll get from Boss McCarthy next month has nothing to do with an automobile."
Irving Vaughan reporting for the Chicago Tribune, Feb. 12, 1927 on Hack's physical appearance before departing for spring training.
"Come back tomorrow, and stand behind Wilson,
and you'll be able to pick up all the balls you want!"
Manager Joe McCarthy's response to a young boy asking for a souvenir ball after Game 2 of the 1929 World Series.
"Built like a Bulgarian wrestler, unacquainted with the poets and a laborer by trade, Wilson, nevertheless, depicted his own nature as that of a delicate flower which thrived on the warmth of executive sympathy, and required to be fertilized constantly by compliments from his boss, baseball players and customers. He was at his best when Joe McCarthy was there to condone his earnest failures and to celebrate his success."
Westbrook Pegler, Chicago Tribune
"For years, it was impossible for me to look at any round outfielder who could hit a long ball without deciding I had found myself another Hack Wilson."
Bill Veeck in "The Hustler's Handbook"
Quotes about Hack Wilson