Baseball Pitcher Quotes

A guy that throws what he intends to throw, that's the definition of a good pitcher. ~ Sandy Koufax

I was the worst hitter ever. I never even broke a bat until last year when I was backing out of the garage. ~ Lefty Gomez

My favorite sport is baseball; my cousin is pitcher Heath Bell. ~ Drake Bell

Today a pitcher gets fined if the umpire thinks he threw at a batter. In the olden days, the umpire didn't have to take any courses in mind reading. The pitcher told you he was going to throw at you. ~ Leo Durocher

Noriega wound up like a baseball pitcher on top of the bed and hurled the small gun, but was low and outside for a ball. His tight-fitting house dress was bunched up high on his chubby thighs, exposing olive drab underwear.
I see London, I see France, I see a crazy dictator's underpants!
Chase's thoughts raced. ~ Cole Alpaugh

In baseball, you can do something poorly and still get credit. A pitcher could throw a bad ball, the batter hit a screaming line drive, and an outfielder make a fantastic diving catch. Yet, when you look at historical databases, 80% of the time when a ball is struck with that trajectory and velocity, it is a hit. ~ Billy Beane

Baseball's Opening Day is full of time-honored traditions: the President throws out the first ball, the Cubs' starting pitcher walks away with a 54.00 ERA, the Royals get mathematically eliminated from the pennant race. ~ Rob Sheffield

No baseball pitcher would be worth a darn without a catcher who could handle the hot fastball. ~ Casey Stengel

For a while I wanted to be a professional baseball pitcher, and then I wanted to be a musician and then sometimes I think I'd like to start a store for gift-wrapping Christmas presents ... But I feel I could do most things I set my mind to, except mechanical things, I'm not very good at that. ~ John Malkovich

Taking the best left-handed pitcher in baseball and converting him into a right fielder is one of the dumbest things I ever heard. ~ Tris Speaker

I wanted to be like Nolan Ryan. I didn't want to be like Pete Gray ... And I don't want kids to be like me because I have one hand. I want kids to be like Jim Abbott because he's a baseball pitcher at Michigan and he won the Big Ten Championship game, and not because I can field a bunt and throw to first. ~ Jim Abbott

I really wondered why people were always doing what they didn't like doing. It seemed like life was a sort of narrowing tunnel. Right when you were born, the tunnel was huge. You could be anything. Then, like, the absolute second after you were born, the tunnel narrowed down to about half that size. You were a boy, and already it was certain you wouldn't be a mother and it was likely you wouldn't become a manicurist or a kindergarten teacher. Then you started to grow up and everything you did closed the tunnel in some more. You broke your arm climbing a tree and you ruled out being a baseball pitcher. You failed every math test you ever took and you canceled any hope of being a scientist. Like that. On and on through the years until you were stuck. You'd become a baker or a librarian or a bartender. Or an accountant. And there you were. I figured that on the day you died, the tunnel would be so narrow, you'd have squeezed yourself in with so many choices, that you just got squashed. ~ Carol Rifka Brunt

There are many ways to measure a manager's success and contributions to a franchise ... but in this case the two numbers that illustrate it best are eight and four: Bobby Cox's #6 jersey was just the eighth number retired in franchise history, and of the remaining seven, four of them played for Bobby. ~ Tucker Elliot

Getting into fights with people makes my heart race. Not getting into fights with people makes my heart race. Even sleeping makes my heart race! I'm lying in bed when the thumping arrives, like a foreign invader. It's a horrible dark mass, like the monolith in 2001, self-organized but completely unknowable, and it enters my body and releases adrenaline. Like a black hole, it sucks in any benign thoughts that might be scrolling across my brain and attaches visceral panic to them. For instance, during the day I might have mused, Hey, I should pack more fresh fruit in Bee's lunch. That night, with the arrival of The Thumper, it becomes, I'VE GOT TO PACK MORE FRESH FRUIT IN BEE'S LUNCH!!! I can feel the irrationality and anxiety draining my store of energy like a battery-operated racecar grinding away in the corner. This is energy I will need to get through the next day. But I just lie in bed and watch it burn, and with it any hope for a productive tomorrow. There go the dishes, there goes the grocery store, there goes exercise, there goes bringing in the garbage cans. There goes basic human kindness. I wake up in a sweat so through I sleep with a pitcher of water by the bed or I might die of dehydration. ~ Maria Semple

Don't ever think $7,000 isn't a lot of money in baseball. I've had huge arguments over a lot less. ~ Jim Bouton

The modern era of Cape Cod baseball dawned in 1963 when the league became a showcase for the collegiate elite. ~ Jane Leavy

I had a great time with baseball growing up. I was lucky to grow up with it and to learn. ~ Nick Johnson

So, you're a pitcher," I said inanely as we started up the stairs.
The team manager had sent Dad an information sheet with everything he needed to know about Jason--emergency numbers, health information, but nothing that was really important. I mean, it didn't provide vital stats like eye color, hair color, or girlfriend status.
"Yeah. Didn't play that much this year because I'm a freshman. I'm hoping that spending time on a collegiate team, playing through the summer, will improve my arm."
I almost said something really corny, like I didn't think his arm needed improving, based on the way the sleeves of his burnt-orange T-shirt were hugging his biceps. But I refrained, since we'd just met and he might not know I was joking. Besides, it wouldn't have really been a joke because he was way buff. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

I wish everybody had the drive he (Joe DiMaggio) had. He never did anything wrong on the field. I'd never seen him dive for a ball, everything was a chest-high catch, and he never walked off the field. ~ Yogi Berra

When you've learned to believe in yourself, there's no telling how good a player you can be. That's because you have the mental edge. ~ Rod Carew

I'm from Boston, and in Boston, you are born with a baseball bat in your hand. And actually, most of the bats in Massachusetts are used off the field instead of on the field, and we all had baseball bats in our cars in high school. ~ Eli Roth

My biggest regret was letting my lifetime average drop below .300. I always felt I was a .300 hitter, and if I could change one thing that would be it. ~ Mickey Mantle

Like any good shaman, professional baseball player, or politician, my mother always answered questions with questions. ~ Sherman Alexie

The great Baseball Hall-of-Famer Tom Seaver put it perfectly: In baseball, my theory is to strive for consistency, not to worry about the numbers. If you dwell on statistics you get shortsighted; if you aim for consistency, the numbers will be there at the end. ~ Jeff Olson

I like the fans, but I don't feel an obligation that I have to be an example to them, like say maybe a baseball player would, or a football player or maybe some other type of musicians. I don't feel I have to really set an example that somebody else has to live up to. ~ Bob Dylan

I grew up in the '60s, which was a creative time, so it wasn't that big of a stretch to go from a baseball bat to a guitar to a film camera. ~ Abel Ferrara

It's hard to win a pennant, but it's harder to lose one. ~ Chuck Tanner

The money I saved during baseball was probably all gone. I'm tapped out. ~ Curt Schilling

In the beginning I used to make one terrible play a game. Then I got so I'd make one a week and finally I'd pull a bad one about once a month. Now, I'm trying to keep it down to one a season. ~ Lou Gehrig

When the Supreme Court says baseball isn't run like a business, everybody jumps up and down with joy. When I say the same thing, everybody throws pointy objects at me. ~ Bill Veeck

Montreal leads Atlanta by three, 5-1. ~ Jerry Coleman

There is a progression of understanding vis-a-vis pro football that varies drastically with the factor of distance
physical, emotional, intellectual and every other way. Which is exactly the way it should be, in the eyes of the amazingly small number of people who own and control the game, because it is this finely managed distance factor that accounts for the high-profit mystique that blew the sacred institution of baseball off its 'national pastime' pedestal in less than fifteen years. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Even though the ball was doubled, they got it anyway. ~ Jerry Coleman

One of the beautiful things about baseball is that every once in a while you come into a situation where you want to, and where you have to, reach down and prove something. ~ Nolan Ryan

I've never questioned the integrity of an umpire. Their eyesight, yes. ~ Leo Durocher

This new baseball is like a golf ball. I think there are going to be a lot more dents put in the wall at Fenway Park this year. ~ Don Zimmer

Any man who can look handsome in a dirty baseball suit is an Adonis. There is something about the baggy pants, and the Micawber-shaped collar, and the skull-fitting cap, and the foot or so of tan, or blue, or pink undershirt sleeve sticking out at the arms, that just naturally kills a man's best points. ~ Edna Ferber

How often does a guy who lives and breathes baseball meet a woman who loves the game and understands it as well as he? ~ Charley Pride

Baseball should be the only thing on an eight year old boy's mind. ~ Aidan Quinn

There couldn't have been a better Hollywood ending for us. It's beyond baseball. It's rooting for your family. ~ Jimmy Fallon

The Golf Hall of Fame is full of players with unusual looking swings. Some of the prettiest swings you've ever seen in your life are made on the far end of the public driving range by guys who couldn't break an egg with a baseball bat. ~ Peter Jacobsen

I've felt some great feelings on the baseball field ... in front of 50,000 people and millions on TV ... but the feeling you get when you give a kid a chance, that is a hundred times greater than that feeling. ~ Cal Ripken, Jr.

Paris ain't much of a town. ~ Babe Ruth

I know who's the best pitcher I ever see and it's old Satchel Paige, that big lanky colored boy. My fastball looks like a change of pace alongside that little pistol bullet ole Satchel (Paige) shoots up to the plate. ~ Dizzy Dean

The game of baseball is better when the Dodgers are playing well, just like when the Yankees are playing well, or the Cubs, the Phillies, the big-name teams. ~ Pete Rose

Catholics speak, like baseball players, in the coded language of gesture. Sure, the Roman Catholic Church is an abomination to man and a disgrace to God, but it comes with a highly structured Mass, several sacred pilgrimages, the oldest songs, the most impressive architecture, and a whole bunch of things to do whenever you enter the church. Taken all together, they make you one with your brother. ~ Joshua Ferris

When you want something," says Michael, "it's like admitting that your life has a hole in it."
"And to fill that hole, you need something that you don't have and you might not get."
Michael gives a little laugh. "I never thought of it like that."
I recall a lesson from our world religions class. "Didn't the Buddha say that want ing is what makes people suffer?"
"The Buddha didn't play baseball," says Michael.
"If he did, maybe he'd think that wanting isn't such a bad thing."
Michael nods. "In some ways, I think that wanting is an act of courage. ~ Paul Acampora

Enough. Standing for an ovation at a baseball game is not enough. To do right by our veterans - to recognize their value to our society and fulfill our solemn obligation to those who volunteered to protect the rest of us - we first have to understand what they have accomplished and what they offer our nation. ~ Howard Schultz

Baseball is slovenly and excessive in midsummer, with its onrolling daily cascade of line scores and box scores, shifting statistics, highlights and lowlights, dingers and shutouts, streaks and slumps. ~ Roger Angell

I had an extremely boring time doing 20 to 30 trades a day while everyone was talking about baseball or basketball. So I stood there fantasizing about a device that could do the same thing I was doing. ~ Thomas Peterffy

Deep down, it's all baseball, no matter what kind of geometrical shape you play it with. ~ Vernon D. Burns

What happens is that all your life you operated businesses in such a way that you could one day afford to buy a baseball team. And then you buy the team and forget all the business practices that enabled you to buy it. ~ George Steinbrenner

I never saw a player who had greater promise. ~ Casey Stengel

And that one is gone. A home run for Mickey Mantle! How do you like that? ~ Mel Allen

The fundamentals of baseball haven't changed, but how we can teach those fundamentals has. With an e-book, learning can be more rewarding and fun. ~ Dusty Baker

Racing is not football or baseball or basketball where you can do it yourself. If you're good in high school, you just shine. (But in racing) you have to have a family behind you. ~ Trevor Bayne

Upsetting the dope is a favorite pastime in baseball. Past performances count for but little in the national pastime. Reputations don't get you anywhere. A club is judged solely on results, and to get results, you must win ball games. ~ Billy Evans

The Capone era. That was my time. Capone was a big baseball fan. He'd walk into the ballpark like the president walking in today, with bodyguards all around him. ~ Billy Herman

The only way I can't hit .300 is if there's something physically wrong with me. ~ Pete Rose

Each kid got a small allowance for helping with the harvests, and Kiernan would always head straight to the tobacco shop. Not for cigarettes. At first, he even threw the cigarettes away, but later he'd save them and sell them to the older kids to get enough money for another pack.
Kiernan didn't want the smokes. He wanted the baseball cards.
When we got back to the Farm, Kiernan would sketch out a baseball diamond in the dirt and we'd stage games with the players from the cards he collected. ~ Rysa Walker

There are a lot of people who influenced me, nurtured me, helped me along the way. But I can just recall looking back, the first time I got my baseball glove. Put it on the wrong hand, all those kind of things. ~ Dave Winfield