"Mr. Rickey, I'll put more people in the park than anybody since Babe Ruth"
About this Quote
The Babe Ruth comparison is doing heavy lifting. Ruth wasn’t just a great player; he was baseball’s first mass-media attraction, a walking spectacle in an era when newspapers and radio could turn a slugger into a national event. Dean’s claim slots him into that lineage: not merely talented, but unavoidable. It’s bravado with a shrewd point: fans don’t buy tickets for competence, they buy them for myth.
The subtext is negotiation. Dean is arguing for leverage, for salary, for status. He’s also flattering Rickey by speaking Rickey’s dialect: audience, attention, revenue. That’s why the line works; it’s half prophecy, half salesmanship, delivered as if it’s just obvious truth.
Context matters, too: in the 1930s, Dean became one of the game’s biggest draws, buoyed by radio-era fame and his own theatrical persona. The quote captures an athlete intuiting the modern sports bargain: perform on the field, perform for the public, and make yourself bigger than the box score.
Quote Details
| Topic | Sports |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Dean, Dizzy. (2026, January 17). Mr. Rickey, I'll put more people in the park than anybody since Babe Ruth. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/mr-rickey-ill-put-more-people-in-the-park-than-69916/
Chicago Style
Dean, Dizzy. "Mr. Rickey, I'll put more people in the park than anybody since Babe Ruth." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/mr-rickey-ill-put-more-people-in-the-park-than-69916/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Mr. Rickey, I'll put more people in the park than anybody since Babe Ruth." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/mr-rickey-ill-put-more-people-in-the-park-than-69916/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.






