"Baseball was a dream I gathered more splinters than hits"
About this Quote
The line also works as business autobiography in disguise. Frank Perdue made his name in an industry built on scale, repetition, and unglamorous labor; the splinters read like the daily abrasions of learning, failing, showing up anyway. He isn't asking for sympathy. He's signaling a worldview: success is less about cinematic triumph than about tolerating minor injuries long enough to outlast the dreamers who quit.
There's a quiet class subtext, too. Baseball sells itself as a ladder; Perdue is admitting he missed the rungs. That "more than" construction carries a ledger mentality - wins and losses, inputs and outputs - the language of someone who eventually found a different field where persistence could be monetized. The charm is its anti-inspirational edge: it respects the dream, but it respects the bruises more.
Quote Details
| Topic | Failure |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Perdue, Frank. (2026, January 16). Baseball was a dream I gathered more splinters than hits. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/baseball-was-a-dream-i-gathered-more-splinters-133388/
Chicago Style
Perdue, Frank. "Baseball was a dream I gathered more splinters than hits." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/baseball-was-a-dream-i-gathered-more-splinters-133388/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Baseball was a dream I gathered more splinters than hits." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/baseball-was-a-dream-i-gathered-more-splinters-133388/. Accessed 8 Feb. 2026.




