Say, if I hadn't been sick last summer, I'd have broken hell out of that home run record! Besides, the President gets a four-year contract. I'm only asking for three.✱

Speaking on January 7, 1930, when asked what made him think he was "worth more than the President of the United States," as quoted in "Yanks Refuse Ruth's Demand For $100,000; Star Asks That Figure On 3-Year Contract or $85,000 and No Exhibitions" by Richards Vidmer, in The New York Herald Tribune (January 8, 1930); also quoted in part—i.e. "The President gets a four-year contract; I'm only asking for three"—later that month in a syndicated story by NEA sportswriter Claire Burcky. / ✱Immediately following is the virtually ubiquitous but almost certainly apocryphal "I had a better year..." variation; in addition, see related contemporaneous quotes from Brian Bell, Herbert Hoover, Albert Keane, Reuters and Will Rogers in Quotes about Ruth.