Baseball Pitch Quotes & Sayings

Here's the thing about baseball-it's not the individual sport I thought it was. Turns out I was wrong about that.
Yeah, the batter is a lone man against the world. He stands in the batter's box like a soldier and it's up to him-and him alone-what happens next.
But here's the thing I didn't understand until I was forced to, until recently: In order to hit a home run ...
Someone else has to pitch the ball. — Barry Lyga

It had been one of the biggest landgrabs in the city's history and Bosch knew the story well, having tried all his life to counter his love of baseball and the Dodgers with the ugly story buried beneath the diamond where, as a boy, he watched Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale pitch. It seemed to him that every gleaming success in the city had a dark seam to it somewhere, usually just out of view. — Michael Connelly

When I auditioned for 'Pitch Perfect,' I didn't know it was a singing movie. I didn't read the script. I go to the audition, and I'm like, 'Oh, it's a baseball movie.' But then I'm reading the lines, and I'm like, 'This doesn't seem like a baseball movie.' — Adam DeVine

One rule I had was make your best pitch and back up third base. That relay might get away and you've got another shot at him. — Lefty Gomez

Baseball isn't just a game. It's the smell of popcorn drifting in the air, the sight of bugs buzzing near the stadium lights,the roughness of the dirt beneath your cleats. It's the anticipation building in your chest as the anthem plays, the adrenaline rush when your bat cracks against the ball, and the surge of blood when the umpire shouts strike after you pitch. It's a team full of guys backing your every move, a bleacher full of people cheering you on. It's ... life — Katie McGarry

I'm a fastball hitter. It's no secret I'm looking for a fastball every pitch. I think it's one of the hardest things to do in sports-to hit a moving baseball. — Carlos Delgado

I'm working on a new pitch. It's called a strike. — Jim Kern

The fastball is the best pitch in baseball. It's like having five pitches, if you move it around. — Luis Tiant

DeShaies is like a clock out there. Every other pitch goes one way or the other. — Jerry Coleman

I've never had to pitch a movie to a studio. I usually just let people read the script, then I cast it. I always think pitching is for baseball. — Harmony Korine

We try to exert a Ted Williams kind of discipline. In his book The Science of Hitting, Ted explains that he carved the strike zone into 77 cells, each the size of a baseball. Swinging only at balls in his "best" cell, he knew, would allow him to bat .400; reaching for balls in his "worst" spot, the low outside corner of the strike zone, would reduce him to .230. In other words, waiting for the fat pitch would mean a trip to the Hall of Fame; swinging indiscriminately would mean a ticket to the minors. — Warren Buffett

When a professional baseball team asks you to throw out the first pitch, that's an honor, and you do it. — Bubba Watson

I'm not like a 90-mph fastball kind of guy, but I can hit 70 on radar gun. I hit 70 one time on a radar guy at one of those pitch-and-throw kind of things. I have a pretty good arm for somebody who's not a baseball player. — Ben Gibbard

Whenever you get an inflamed tendon, you've got a problem. OK, here's the next pitch to Gene Tendon. — Jerry Coleman

The difference between a home run and a swing-and-a-miss is, what, an inch and a half? You can throw a great pitch, the guy makes a great swing. And if it's at a guy, it's an out. That's the beauty of baseball, really. There's not just one guy in control. — Phil Humber

Blind people come to the park just to hear him pitch. — Reggie Jackson

Gentlemen, for the first 60 feet that was a hell of a pitch. — Warren Spahn

Sanguillen is totally unpredictable to pitch to because he's so unpredictable. — Jerry Coleman

Baseball is continuity. Pitch to pitch. Inning to inning. Season to season. — Ernie Harwell

Most of us would give anything for the chance to play just one day of MLB baseball - especially for our favorite team. Well, there once was a pitcher named Bock Baker who actually got two opportunities to pitch in the big leagues. He took the mound for Cleveland against the Chicago White Sox in his big league debut. How did he fare? Well, he pitched a complete game. Pretty spectacular, right? Well, sure - but it depends on your perspective. He gave up 23 hits and 13 runs. Baker never pitched for Cleveland again, but the Philadelphia Athletics gave him a second big league start that same year (1901). He lasted juts six innings, and lost again after giving up 11 runs - and then his career was over. — Tucker Elliot

You might as well go in and start getting dressed. I'm going to hit his first pitch for a home run. — Mickey Mantle

Turner was like a pencil. He bent around that pitch! — Jerry Coleman

Fast pitch softball is just as dangerous as baseball. The ball is bigger so you can see it better, but the size also makes for a bigger space to move out of its way. — Sara Gilbert

Probably the most dramatic change in pitching I've observed in my years in baseball has been the disappearance of the knockdown or brushback pitch. This is why record numbers of home runs are flying out of ballparks, why earned run averages are soaring, and why there are so few twenty game winners in the majors. — Frank Robinson

Think. Don't just swing. Think about the pitcher, what he threw you last time up, his best pitch, who's up next. Think. — 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's a reason diehard fans get to the ballpark hours before game time. It's not for better parking. It's not for extra time to find our seats. It's not so we'll have time to down an extra hot dog, heavy on the mustard, prior to the first pitch. It's called BP. — Tucker Elliot

I played a lot of baseball growing up, and I always hit better if I kept moving before the pitch instead of standing still in the batter's box. I think a waggle does the same thing in the golf swing. It keeps you relaxed and gets your body ready to hit the ball. — Jason Dufner

I grew up in Arkansas and that's the law. My dad was a high school basketball coach, so I was raised as a coach's son and I was a baseball player back in Arkansas, and I lived in Texas, too, so I was just surrounded by sports. So that's what I was going to do: Pitch for the St Louis Cardinals. I had no idea I was going to be an actor. So I got my collar bone broken in the Kansas City Royals training camp. And once I got hurt I started doing other things for a while. — Billy Bob Thornton

Pitch within yourself. — Tom Seaver

I never leave a game before the last pitch, because in baseball, as in life and especially politics, you never know what will happen. — Richard M. Nixon

Mike Caldwell, the Padres' right-handed southpaw, will pitch tonight. — Jerry Coleman

One of the supreme paradoxes of baseball, and all sports, is that the harder you try to throw a pitch or hit a ball or accomplish something, the smaller your chances are for success. You get the best results not when you apply superhuman effort but when you let the game flow organically and allow yourself to be fully present. You'll often hear scouts say of a great prospect, "The game comes slow to him." It mean the prospect is skilled and poised enough to let the game unfold in its own time, paying no attention to the angst or urgency or doubt, funnelling all awareness to the athletic task at hand. — R.A. Dickey

Major League Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests that in this situation, the batter would be considered "hit by pitch," and would be eligible to advance to first base. — Randall Munroe

Baseball is a game where a curve is an optical illusion, a screwball can be a pitch or a person, stealing is legal and you can spit anywhere you like except in the umpire's eye or on the ball. — James Patrick Murray

The good rising fastball is the best pitch in baseball. — Tom Seaver

The first pitch to Tucker Ashford is grounded into left field. No, wait a minute. It's ball one. Low and outside. — Jerry Coleman

Yeah. No matter what Coach does or doesn't do. Because ... I'm going on my terms. Even if by some miracle he recommends me for the scholarship, I'm not taking it."
That surprises her. "I don't get it."
"That's why I had no choice but to let that pitch go by. I had to prove to myself that I could live without baseball. I can't go to college on their terms. I can't be the ballplayer first and the student second, and if they're giving me an athletic scholarship, believe me - that's what it would be. Athlete-scholar, not the other way around. No one can convince me otherwise.
"So, yeah. I'll have to take out student loans. I'll have to work my ass off. But that's OK. — Barry Lyga

Everything with me is normal except when I pitch (in Fenway Park). When I pitch here it's a little different. There is a little more anxiety to go along with the nostalgia because this is the park I grew up with as a kid. This is the park I dreamed of playing Major League Baseball in and no other ballpark has that feeling for me. There are a lot more family and friends here than in my normal starts and I want to pitch well here. — Tom Glavine