Wikiquote’s sourced section ↗ places this in a newspaper article of 13 August 1920 — “Keep Your Eye On the Ball”, written by Ruth as told to the sportswriter Westbrook Pegler ↗ , and running in the Chicago Tribune of that date at p. 11. Pegler was then a sports writer for United News; he did not join the Tribune until 1925, so the piece most likely reached it by syndication — that last step is our inference, not something either source states. That is a specific, checkable citation, and we could not check it: the newspaper’s own archive refuses us. We say “attributed” because we have not read the page, not because anything suggests it is wrong.
“I always swing at the ball with all my might. I hit or miss big” — Babe Ruth, attributed. Cited to "Keep Your Eye On the Ball," Chicago Tribune, August 13, 1920 (as told to Westbrook Pegler). Not independently verified.
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? We couldn’t establish where this was first published, so there’s no rights status to give. Credit it as shown above — just don’t present it as public domain, and get permission for commercial or published reuse.
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In context
Evoking the world of Babe Ruth — American baseball player. Theme: "I always swing at the ball with all my might. I hit or miss big". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
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Provenance
The sentence people stop quoting halfway
Cited to
“Keep Your Eye On the Ball”, Chicago Tribune, 13 August 1920, p. 11
Written
By Ruth, as told to Westbrook Pegler
Also cited as
Playing the Game: My Early Years in Baseball
Our check
Not independently confirmed — both cited archives are closed to us
I always swing at the ball with all my might. I hit or miss big and when I miss I know it long before the umpire calls a strike on me, for every muscle in my back, shoulders and arms is groaning, “You missed it.” And believe me, it is no fun to miss a ball that hard. Once I put myself out of the game for a few days by a miss like that.
This is Wikiquote’s transcription of the 1920 article, not our reading of the original — we could not open it. Worth noting how much the popular fragment leaves out: the interesting half is Ruth describing what a miss feels like in the muscles of his back.
Wikiquote ↗ lists this in its sourced section with a full citation: “Keep Your Eye On the Ball”, by Ruth as told to Pegler, Chicago Tribune, 13 August 1920, p. 11, reprinted in Playing the Game: My Early Years in Baseball, p. 29.
We tried both and failed. The Chicago Tribune’s archive returns HTTP 403 to us, and the Google Books copy of the reprint serves no readable text. Neither link is cited here as corroboration, because we cannot say what it contains.
We also checked where it is not. The line does not appear in the full text of Ruth’s 1928 book ↗, and a Library of Congress newspaper search for two distinctive phrases from the passage returned nothing — that collection does not hold the 1920 Tribune.
We assert no rights status here. If the 1920 Chicago Tribune attribution is correct, the wording would be in the public domain in the United States, since it was published well before 1931. We could not open that source, so we are not going to claim it.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Context
Hitting or missing big
In 1920, his first season with the Yankees, Ruth hit fifty-four home runs — more than any other team in the American League except one. He also led the league in strikeouts. The two facts are the same fact, and this sentence is him saying so, in August of that season, while it was happening.
The all-or-nothing swing was a genuine tactical argument at the time, not a slogan. Ruth was proposing that the strikeouts were worth it. The rest of baseball spent the next century agreeing with him.
I hit or miss big.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
George Herman “Babe” Ruth spent 22 seasons in Major League Baseball, beginning as a left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and becoming, with the New York Yankees, the player who reorganised the sport around the home run. In 1920, his first Yankees season, he hit 54 home runs and led the league in strikeouts — the trade-off this sentence describes.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
The primary source (Chicago)
Babe Ruth, as told to Westbrook Pegler, “Keep Your Eye On the Ball,” Chicago Tribune, August 13, 1920, p. 11 — as cited by Wikiquote; not independently verified.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I always swing at the ball with all my might. I hit or miss big’?” Last verified 25 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-always-swing-at-the-ball-with-all-my-might-i-hit-or-miss/