Paintings, prints and art of sports athletes – MLB, NFL, NCAA, NBA, PGA athletes by Fine Artist, Dave Choate.

Painting covering the days when I was most passionate about baseball – the late ’70′s rivalry between the Yankees and Red Sox.

My favorite player growing up was Graig Nettles and the original painting started with just him diving for the ball (orange background). I had a lot of different ideas to enhance the painting with a baseball backdrop, a few dozen quotations regarding the ’70′s Yankees or additional players.

It wasn’t until about 9 months later that I decided to go with some quotes. I came across this gem from Bill “The Spaceman” Lee.

“You take a team with twenty-five assholes and I’ll show you a pennant. I’ll show you the New York Yankees.”

“(Yankees) look like a bunch of hookers swinging their purses.”

Thurman Munson also had a funny quote relating to a Lee-Nettles brawl in which Lee suffered an arm injury.

“I guess Graig hit him with his purse.”

Adding Lee in his spaceman outfit seemed like a good fit. I also liked a quote by Jimmy Breslow about the difference between Yankees and Mets fans.

“You see, the Mets are losers, just like nearly everybody else in life. This is the team for the cab driver who gets held up and the guy who loses out on a promotion because he didn’t maneuver himself to lunch with the boss enough. It is the team for every guy who has to get out of bed in the morning and go to work for short money on a job he does not like. The Yankees? Who does well enough to root for them, Laurence Rockefeller?” – Jimmy Breslin

I had Jimmy sitting on Nettles’ calf, but as much as I liked the quote, it didn’t really go with the theme between Nettles and Lee. I found a few other quotes by Lee aimed at Steinbrenner and thought having Steiny ride Nettles like a horse in his Napolean outfit made for a better fit.

My process is fairly simple as I let my paintings reveal themselves as I move along.