Success Quote by Carl Hubbell

“Too big an order” is the kind of modest understatement athletes use when they want to admit awe without sounding like they’re bowing. Carl Hubbell is talking about striking out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig back-to-back, but the sentence really plays like a peek behind the curtain of mythmaking: even the guy on the mound knows he’s dealing with baseball’s heavy pantheon, not just two hitters.

The intent is self-protective and respectful at once. Hubbell frames the feat as nearly impossible, which flatters Ruth and Gehrig while also insulating his own legacy from the charge of bravado. It’s the pitcher’s version of saying, “I got lucky,” except the subtext is sharper: luck in this sport is earned through nerve, sequencing, and the willingness to challenge legends. By calling it “too big,” he quietly elevates the moment from a routine matchup to a test of scale, as if the game briefly became larger than itself.

Context matters because Hubbell wasn’t a punchline arm; he was a Hall of Fame left-hander known for a wicked screwball, and he did, famously, run through a lineup of stars in the 1934 All-Star Game. That era loved its titans, and newspapers minted heroes fast. Hubbell’s line resists that inflation. It’s a deflation tactic that still keeps the balloon in the air: he’s telling you how enormous Ruth and Gehrig were by pretending the impossibility is the only story worth telling.