Hitters Quotes

Major League Baseball is the best league in the world, full of capable hitters up and down every single lineup. ~ Ron Darling

I don't like pitchers who walk hitters. It puts pressure on your defense. The less walks you have, the better your chances of getting through innings. More walks lead to overworking your bullpen, sometimes just by having to get somebody up, just in case. ~ Kevin Towers

Players who stand flat footed and swing with their arms are golfers, not hitters. ~ Rogers Hornsby

Augusta is a very unique golf course. It's a long hitters' course; main reason is because the greens are so severe, and the areas where they put the pin is such a small area. The little plateaus and undulations mean it's incredibly important to be close to that pin so you can be aggressive. ~ Fred Funk

I think about how a guy mentally prepared himself to do battle, to go out and face the pitcher. I think so many hitters do not know how to get themselves prepared to play or hit against a pitcher. You have to mentally be prepared to hit against all pitchers. ~ Hank Aaron

You have to be out there and have a mound presence. You have to be real aggressive and be real confident. You have to put the hitters on defense. ~ Eric Gagne

There aren't many hitters who like facing knuckleball pitchers. They may not be intimidated by them, but they sure are thinking about them before they go into the box. ~ Phil Niekro

My manager said it would more effective against left-handed hitters. It seemed to me that was impossible to do without the high leg kick, which I started that day. ~ Juan Marichal

Most of the managers are lifetime .220 hitters. For years pitchers have been getting these managers out 75% of the time and that's why they don't like us. ~ Bill Lee

Good hitters don't become intimidated. They become infuriated. ~ Ken Singleton

Novelist time is reptile time; novelists tend to be ruminant and brooding, nursers of ancient grievances, second-guessers, Tuesday afternoon quarterbacks, retrospectators, endlessly, like slumping hitters, studying the film of their old whiffs. ~ Michael Chabon

Ben Hogan was not really a big hitter. He was long enough. But Ben Hogan today? Ben Hogan today could not compete at Augusta because he did not have the massive length to compete against the long hitters. Power was always an issue at Augusta, but never so dominant that you couldn't play it. ~ Jack Nicklaus

I've been in eleven no-hitters you know. ~ Bert Campaneris

People think of the greatest home run hitters of all time and think of Babe Ruth; they don't think about that Warren Spahn hit more than anybody. ~ Rollie Fingers

To be the first player to do it three consecutive years (fifty or more home runs), you go back through the thousands of power hitters who played this game and nobody has ever done it, and I can sit here and say I'm the first. I'm pretty proud of that. ~ Mark McGwire

I've worked with a lot of real heavy hitters, and Quentin is maybe heads and shoulders, at least a forehead, above just about anybody I've ever worked with. ~ David Carradine

Pitchers make adjustments, and it's up to the hitters to readjust and sort of tweak what they do. ~ Joe Torre

If they knocked two of your guys down, I'd get four. You have to protect your hitters. ~ Don Drysdale

I'm glad I don't have to face that guy (Don Mattingly) every day. He has that look that few hitters have. I don't know if it's his stance, his eyes or what, but you can tell he means business. ~ Dwight Gooden

I have five pitches. Fast ball, change, curve, slider, screwball. I don't know any hitters. Catcher, he tells me what to do. I can get any pitch I want over the plate. ~ Juan Marichal

It must be nice for today's hitters when you don't have to worry about being thrown at. It's a whole different deal. When I played, getting knocked down was an accepted part of the game. ~ Harmon Killebrew

Now the advantage is all with the hitters. ~ Rogers Hornsby

Why shouldn't we pitch to Babe Ruth? We pitch to better hitters in the National League. ~ John McGraw

In baseball, even the best hitters fail seven of ten times, and of those seven failures there are different reasons why. Some are personal failures, others are losses to the pitcher. You just get beat. In those personal failures, I felt I could have done better. ~ Ichiro Suzuki

When I got to the stadium, one of my biggest things was watching video of hitters. ~ Bengie Molina

Hitters are too big, too strong, and their bats are too quick. I have to go inside to have success. ~ Tim Hudson

You know what they say about big hitters ... the woods are full of them. ~ Jimmy Demaret

Ted Williams is one of the best hitters ever to play the game, and I didn't get a chance to see him play, so all I could do was read books and look at pictures. ~ Tony Gwynn

I'm just trying to work hard every day, trying to be a better player and one day, to be right there with them, one of those special hitters. ~ David Ortiz

All we are is proof that love can survive anything. You and I, we're heavy hitters, but even at our worst, we still couldn't break this bond. If you're honest with yourself, we didn't even come close. ~ R.K. Lilley

Good hitters don't just go up and swing. They always have a plan. Call it an educated deduction. You visualize. You're like a good negotiator. You know what you have, you know what he has, then you try to work it out. ~ Dave Winfield

I like my friends to be the hitters. The pitchers, they all have the same brain as I do. The hitters see the game from a different perspective. ~ Joe Mays

If you try to give them a scheme, most hitters will rebel. ~ Tony La Russa

It's funny what a few no-hitters do for a body. ~ Satchel Paige

Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, sort of the three big hitters on the Republican side. ~ Steve Kornacki

My favorite part (of the game) is knowing that they're comfortable, knowing that, no matter
what, they can count on me. What I really enjoy most about catching is the
relationship with a pitcher. The most important thing is they can relax when I'm
back there and know that I did my job, I did some homework on hitters. ~ Jorge Posada

Old third basemen become first basemen, and old first basemen become designated hitters. ~ George Brett

Hitters get paid a lot of money to hit. Let's face it, man, sometimes they just do. ~ Andy Pettitte

Basically, hitters fall into a pattern, and once you know what they like, you can set them up for the putout with something else. ~ Tom Seaver

All small men, all non-power hitters, must learn to bunt well. It's half your game. ~ Nellie Fox

I always tried to learn about the hitters. Anytime someone got a hit off me, I made a mental note of the pitch. He'd never see that one again. ~ Christy Mathewson

You had to pitch in and out. The zone didn't belong to the hitters; it belonged to the pitchers. Today, if you pitch too far inside, the umpire would stop you right there. I don't think it's fair. ~ Juan Marichal

I've always maintained that if I wasn't studying psychopaths in prison, I'd do so at the stock exchange," he enthused. "Without doubt, there's a greater proportion of psychopathic big hitters in the corporate world than there is in the general population. You'll find them in any organization where your position and status afford you power and control over others, and the chance of material gain. ~ Kevin Dutton

Mr. Feld was right; life was like baseball, filled with loss and error, with bad hops and wild pitches, a game in which even champions lost almost as often as they won, and even the best hitters were put out seventy percent of the time. ~ Michael Chabon

A pitcher will never be a big winner until he hates hitters. ~ Early Wynn

There is nothing wrong with [pitching by committee] in mid-week [games]. It creates unique problems for hitters. I think it creates more problems for good-hitting teams than it does for the other teams. ~ Wayne Graham

I don't think I've shied away from anybody. I'm not scared. I respect hitters, but I'm not afraid. ~ Mark Prior

A lot of hitters stay away from the plate, some are close up, some are forward, some are back. The thing about hitting is this: You have to know the strike zone. That's the most important thing. Hit strikes and put the bat on the ball. ~ Stan Musial

Cardinal rule for all hitters with two strikes on them: Never trust the umpire. ~ Robert Smith

I think there's a growing number of pitchers who want to have a plan going into a game about how they're going to go after that lineup. I'd say 75 percent want to have an idea, and they plan their attack. I know that 75 percent of hitters do not have that same type of plan against a pitcher. ~ Tony La Russa

I don't want to take anything away from Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle. They're both great hitters, but they're batting against guys they never would have seen in previous years. ~ Ted Williams

Bruce Sutter and his new pitch, the split finger fastball, fascinate the manager of the Cuban national teams. 'We must find out about this new weapon,' he said. 'Are the American hitters plotting to murder him? ~ Thomas Boswell

There are no short hitters on the tour anymore - just long and unbelievably long. ~ Sam Snead

I saw a lot of good hitters but I never saw a better one than Paul Waner. I mean I once threw a side arm spitter right into his belly and he hit it into the upper deck. ~ Burleigh Grimes

But this is the point I want to make: When you talk about steroids and
you talk about what it means to the game, the three greatest home run
hitters of all time-Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Willie Mays, right? When
they were 39 years old, how many home runs do you think they averaged?
The three greatest home run hitters of all time averaged 18 home runs
at age 39. Now, how many home runs did Barry Bonds hit when he was 39?
He hit 73! ~ Carlton Fisk

While I'm no Major League Baseball prospect, I have thrown a few no-hitters in my day. And not only were there no hitters, there was also nobody there to catch. ~ Jarod Kintz

I wish I was just a left-handed hitter. It's really tough having to keep both sides sharp, and that's one reason why you don't see switch-hitters hit for that high of an average. You're always fighting one side or the other. ~ Lance Berkman

I've witnessed thousands of superior athletes try to becomes hitters and fail at it. ~ Willie Stargell

And in that moment he felt- for the first time that optimistic and cheerful boy allowed himself to feel- how badly made life was, how flawed. No matter how richly furnished you made it, with all the noise and variet of Something, Nothing always found a way in, seeped through the cracks and patches. Mr. Feld was right; life was like baseball, filled with loss and error, with bad hops and wild pitches, a game in which even champions lost almost as often as they won and even the best hitters were put out 70 percent of the time ~ Michael Chabon

I'm a pitcher, so the glove is my only accessory. The hitters get to have all the fun. They have batting helmets, the actual bats, gloves, elbow guards - all this cool stuff to wear. And all I get is a glove. ~ C. J. Wilson

The only players that are having fun are those having a good year, feasting on pitching or blowing down hitters and garnering all the adulation that goes with it. But, if you're not hitting or not throwing well, or are injured, you better look for fun someplace else. ~ Dave Winfield

We just kind of relied on written scouting reports through the eighties and even the early nineties. I've really been amazed by some of the data that's out there, especially with regards to tendencies of hitters, and certainly tendencies of pitchers as well. I would have loved to have gotten that data when I played. ~ David Cone