Motivation Quote by Willie Stargell

Bragging is usually the dullest genre in sports, but Stargell’s line lands because it’s bragging as folklore. “Proud” is the polite word; the flex underneath is mythmaking. He isn’t claiming he was the best hitter of his era in some abstract, spreadsheetable way. He’s staking ownership of a single, almost cartoonish act: a ball hit so far it escapes the stadium’s boundaries and, symbolically, the sport’s normal limits.

The specific intent is simple: plant a flag in baseball’s memory palace. Dodger Stadium isn’t just any park; it’s a modern cathedral, a West Coast monument to the game’s expansion and show-business scale. Saying he hit one “completely out” turns the venue from stage to measuring stick. The phrase is doing quiet work, too. Not “over the fence,” not “into the bleachers,” but out of the building. That escalation makes the achievement feel less like a home run and more like a breach of physics, the kind of story teammates repeat until it hardens into legend.

The subtext is status in a sport that canonizes numbers but survives on tales. Stargell, a Pittsburgh icon in a blue-collar city, inserts himself into Los Angeles glamour on his own terms: raw force. He’s also subtly reminding you that baseball’s greatness can’t be fully captured by stats; sometimes it’s a single swing that creates a permanent image. Pride, here, isn’t vanity as much as authorship: he’s writing the version of himself you’re supposed to remember.