Baseball Pitcher Quotes & Sayings

Baseball has traditionally possessed a wonderful lack of seriousness. The game's best player, Babe Ruth, was a Rabelaisian fat man, and its most loved manager, Casey Stengel, spoke gibberish. In this lazy sport, only the pitcher pours sweat. Then he takes three days off. — Thomas Boswell

I have an Alka-Seltzer bat. You know-plop, plop, fizz, fizz, when the pitcher sees me walking up there he says, 'Oh, what a relief it is'. — Andy Van Slyke

Greg Maddux is probably the best pitcher in all of baseball along with Roger Clemens. He's much more intelligent than I am because he doesn't have a 95 or 98 mph fastball. I would tell any pitcher who wants to be successful to watch him, because he's the true definition of a pitcher. — Randy Johnson

I think that's why I like baseball. There's something great about it - you're young, the pitcher's young and he's got this great arm, and he doesn't really realize anything about strategy. — Bruce McCulloch

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

Joe Sewell is the toughest strikeout in baseball history. In 14 seasons he struck out only 114 times - he never struck out three times in a game, and he struck out twice in a game on only two occasions. So how is it possible that a 30-year-old pitcher who won eight games and recorded 54 strikeouts - in his career - fanned Sewell twice in one game? I don't know, but he did, in 1923. — Tucker Elliot

I would say I was jock. I went to Sierra College. I was a big baseball player. Getting into the MLB was my dream - to become a left-handed pitcher for the Yankees. That's what I was hoping, but life kind of went the other way. — Ryan Guzman

The man on the rock had pitched five outs in the losing game, and had given up two runs on a single. But he'd inherited loaded bases. The story of his life. The story of all our lives. — David James Duncan

You don't understand the power of loss when it first hits you like a baseball coming fast from an out-of-control pitcher....It's the third day after an injury when the pain really starts to throb. — Joan Bauer

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

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

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

I am so happy and proud to learn of Hideo Nomo's election to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame. He was quite a pitcher and competitor, but he is also a very special and caring person. — Tommy Lasorda

A no-hitter secures a pitcher's spot on an elite yet diverse list that embraces Hall of Famers, struggling journeymen, and wide-eyed rookies. — Dirk Lammers

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

No one intuitively understands quantum mechanics because all of our experience involves a world of classical phenomena where, for example, a baseball thrown from pitcher to catcher seems to take just one path, the one described by Newton's laws of motion. Yet at a microscopic level, the universe behaves quite differently. — Lawrence M. Krauss

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

The typical baseball play is a pitcher throwing a ball and the batter not swinging at it, while the other players watch. Even a home run, the sport's defining big blast, is only metaphorically exciting; a fly ball that leaves the yard changes the score but may offer no more compelling view than an outfielder staring up. — Richard Corliss

A good base stealer should make the whole infield jumpy. Whether you steal or not, you're changing the rhythm of the game. If the pitcher is concerned about you, he isn't concentrating enough on the batter. — Joe Morgan

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

The beanball is one of the meanest things on Earth and no decent fellow would use it. The beanball is a potential murderer. If I were a batter and thought the pitcher really tried to bean me, I'd be inclined to wait for him outside the park with a baseball bat. — Walter Johnson

'Hard Hit,' a YA collection of poems, explores the country of grief and survival. Mark, a 16-year-old boy and skilled pitcher, must confront the coming death of his beloved father with the help of his friends, family, baseball, and an idiosyncratic belief in God. I used my own experience of my parents' deaths to inform this journey. — Ann Turner

Baseball is a movable conversation across nine innings. It is eye contact with the person seated next to you in a park where the pitcher is separated from the batter by 60 feet, six inches or in a family room where a 60-inch TV screen hangs on the wall. — Mike Barnicle

In baseball, I was a pitcher, which I hated because there was no action there. — Bo Jackson

Researchers measure that the average major-league pitcher puts 40 pounds of pressure on his shoulder by cocking and releasing the baseball. Curious how much more the body could take, those same researchers tested cadavers. The shoulder broke apart at just beyond 40 pounds. — Tom Verducci

I believe it is a tradition in baseball that when a pitcher has a no-hitter going, no one reminds him of it. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

A team of giants needs giant pitchers who throw good ideas but every pitcher needs an outstanding catcher. Without giant catchers, the ideas of the giant pitchers may eventually disappear. — Max De Pree

Plausible that a professional pitcher with some time to practice could throw a golf ball faster than a baseball. — Randall Munroe

When you hear from other players and they're telling you you're the best pitcher in baseball, that makes you feel really good. — Johan Santana

When I was young, I was so interested in baseball that my family was afraid I'd waste my life and be a pitcher. Later they were afraid I'd waste my life and be a poet. They were right. — Robert Frost

When you come [to a baseball game] in person, you direct your own focus, you know? The TV or the radio men, they might focus on the pitcher when you want to see what first base is doing; and you don't have any choice but to accept it. — Anne Tyler

To a pitcher, a base hit is the perfect example of negative feedback. — Steve Hovley

I eye Chuy like a pitcher in baseball does when a guy leads too far off base. — Simone Elkeles

When I started in professional baseball, I had what you might call a rude awakening. See this scar right next to my left ear? That's where the pitcher hit me the very first time I came to bat as a pro. I was out cold for about 10 minutes. — Billy Herman

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

I've been able to dine with presidents, with leaders of corporations, traveled for 14 years with (financier and philanthropist) Michael Milken, who has taught me so much about life. Hanging around with them, it's nothing I could have believed in grade school. I could be with all of them? Milton Berle, Don Rickles, Dean Martin ... this former third-string pitcher from the Norristown High baseball team and the son of an Italian immigrant? I really am in awe when I think that has happened to me. What a life. — Tommy Lasorda

A hitter's impatience is the pitcher's biggest advantage. — Pete Rose

I gave (pitcher) Mike Cuellar more chances than I gave my first wife. — Earl Weaver

If you had a pill that would guarantee a pitcher 20 wins, but might take five years off his life, he'd take it. — Jim Bouton

For hitter or pitcher, rookie or veteran, baseball has long been defined by failure rather than success, the old a-.300-hitter-gets-out-7-times-in-10-at-bats truism. Dealing with and managing failure is an essential - some would say the essential - part of the job description. — Barry Svrluga

The difference between winning nineteen games and winning twenty for a pitcher is bigger than anyone out of baseball realizes. It's the same for hitters - someone who hits .300 looks back on the guy who batted .295 and says 'tough luck buddy. — Warren Spahn

Bob Gibson is the luckiest pitcher I ever saw. He always pitches when the other team doesn't score any runs. — Tim McCarver

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

When you're caring with your head, there are the things that we talked about that seems boring in baseball. But when you care about your heart, exactly the boring things - a pitcher looking over to first, a batter stepping out and adjusting his gloves - those are just tiresome to the person who's interested. But to the person who's invested, it just makes everything all the more dramatic. — Mike Pesca

Spread the diaper in the position of the diamond with you at bat. Then fold second base down to home and set the baby on the pitcher's mound. Put first base and third together, bring up home plate and pin the three together. Of course, in case of rain, you gotta call the game and start all over again. — Jimmy Piersall

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 consider myself as a character actor. I like the sports analogy, which I do all the time; I'm an avid sports guy. I'm a golfer, but I grew up as sort of an avid fan and participant in baseball, and I'm like a relief pitcher. My job is to come in and throw strikes. — Clint Howard

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

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

The game of baseball between pitcher and hitter sets up like a game of chess in that you have to anticipate several moves ahead to set up your opponent. — Brad Lidge

Baseball skills schizophrenically encompass a pitcher's, a batter's and a fielder's. — John Updike

But baseball was different. Schwartz thought of it as Homeric - not a scrum but a series of isolated contests. Batter versus pitcher, fielder versus ball. You couldn't storm around, snorting and slapping people, the way Schwartz did while playing football.You stood and waited and tried to still your mind. When your moment came, you had to be ready, because if you fucked up, everyone would know whose fault it was. What other sport not only kept a stat as cruel as the error but posted it on the scoreboard for everyone to see? — Chad Harbach

Technical knowledge, divorced from what it is supposed to be knowledge of, yields only the illusion of understanding. It's like being able to reel off the locations in a baseball field -- first base, second base, third base, home plate, left field, right field, center field, pitcher's mound -- without having the slightest clue as to how they function in a game. You can talk the talk, but you can't walk the walk. — Stanley Fish

What we have are good gray ballplayers, playing a good gray game and reading the good gray Wall Street Journal. They have been brainwashed, dry-cleaned and dehydrated! ... Wake up the echoes at the Hall of Fame and you will find that baseball's immortals were a rowdy and raucous group of men who would climb down off their plaques and go rampaging through Cooperstown, taking spoils ... Deplore it if you will, but Grover Cleveland Alexander drunk was a better pitcher than Grover Cleveland Alexander sober. — Bill Veeck

Only one person can own any plate at a time. It belongs to the pitcher, or it belongs to the batter, Aiken, but not to both. You understand. — Allan Dare Pearce

In the sixties, dear Bill, we did not say 'top' and 'bottom' - we said 'pitcher' and 'catcher' ... — John Irving

I may not be the bestest pitcher in the world, but I sure out-cutes 'em. — Satchel Paige

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

I name (Honus) Wagner first on my list, not only because he was a great batting champion and base-runner, and also baseball's foremost shortstop, but because Honus (Wagner) could have been first at any other position, with the possible exception of pitcher. In all my career, I never saw such a versatile player. — John McGraw

Balls and strikes are the basic tenet to everything in baseball. From the perspective of hitting, pitching, offense and defense, it's all about the strike zone and how the battle is waged there between the pitcher and hitter. — Doug Harvey

I like football. I like baseball. When the pitcher and the batter start fighting, that's the best. — Pablo Francisco

Baseball can be slow in many ways. The action starts with when the pitcher delivers the ball. But the action really starts when the crack of the bat happens. — Cal Ripken Jr.

How soon do you think it is? Time will tell me. When it's autumn, the leaves fall. When the time comes, I'll know it.
[Responding to a question about when he will start throwing his slider in his attempt to comeback from a career-ending stroke.] — J.R. Richard

I love both sports, but the deciding factor was, being a left-handed pitcher, I had a huge advantage in baseball because of that, and I didn't have that type of advantage in hockey. — Tom Glavine

Give me five players like Robinson and a pitcher and I'll beat any nine-man team in baseball. — Chuck Dressen