Quotes & Sayings About Hitting In Baseball

I remember I was a scared rookie, hitting .220 after the first three months of my baseball season, and doubting my ability. — Carl Yastrzemski

I never get nervous. Baseball consists of two things: hitting and pitching, and we've got both. — Carl Pohlad

Toughest job in baseball is the general manager. Second toughest is the hitting coach. — Ken Harrelson

The sport to which I owe so much has undergone profound changes, but it's still baseball. Kids still imitate their heroes on playgrounds. Fans still ruin expensive suits going after foul balls that cost five dollars. Hitting streaks still make the network news and hot dogs still taste better at the ballpark than at home. — Duke Snider

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

There has always been a saying in baseball that you can't make a hitter, but I think you can improve a hitter. More than you can improve a fielder. More mistakes are made hitting than in any other part of the game. — Ted Williams

I swing big, with everything I've got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can. — Babe Ruth

Baseball's rich in wonderful statistics, but it's hard to find one more beautiful than Stan Musial's hitting record. He didn't care where he was, he just hit. — George Will

Making love is like hitting a baseball. You just gotta relax and concentrate. — Susan Sarandon

Phrases and images from the game filtered through his head... hitting the sweet spot, working the rosin bag, over the bat, going deep, in the hole, double header, baseball was a filthy, dirty sport! — J.D. Ruskin

Even if Mays is given every conceivable break on every unknown - defense, base running, clutch hitting - his performance still would not match Mantle's. — Bill James

When Steve and I die, we are going to be buried in the same cemetery, 60-feet 6-inches apart. — Tim McCarver

The silliest and most tendentious of baseball writing tries to wrest profundity from the spectacle of grown men hitting a ball with a stick by suggesting linkages between the sport and deep issues of morality, parenthood, history, lost innocence, gentleness, and so on, seemingly ad infinitum . (The effort reeks of silliness because baseball is profound all by itself and needs no excuses; people who don't know this are not fans and are therefore unreachable anyway. — Stephen Jay Gould

I truly believe my job starts the minute I leave the baseball field. Going out and catching ground balls and hitting, that's a job, and that's what I've wanted to do ever since I was a kid. But when you think about leaving that field, that's when the job and the demands really start. In New York, Seattle, every city. The community, the media, business stuff. You have to stay on a narrow path. — Alex Rodriguez

Foreign policy is like hitting a baseball: if you fail 70 percent of the time, you go to the Hall of Fame. — Robert Kagan

He [Ted Williams] was only a 23-year-old kid when he batted .406 in 1941, but then the season ended and our country came under attack at Pearl Harbor - and by 1943 he was a Marine fighter pilot serving overseas who cheated death on several documented occasions. He came back in 1946, and he won his first career MVP after hitting 38 home runs. — Tucker Elliot

Pro sports are a tough business
whether you're in baseball, football, or something else. But when you're running around the bases after hitting a home run or jumping up and down after a touchdown, a little boy comes to the surface. — Roy Campanella

In 1961 somebody could've hit a home run to win the game and the next day the headline was about the M&M boys not hitting a home run. But everyone was real good about it. Instead of getting mad they joked about it. — Mickey Mantle

The naked pinch hitter takes only one thing to the plate: his raw, and somewhat irrational, confidence in himself. That this confidence is so unreasonable adds to its dignity. — Thomas Boswell

Baseball didn't really get into my blood until I knocked off that hitting streak. Getting a daily hit became more important to me than eating, drinking or sleeping. — Joe DiMaggio

During my 18 years I came to bat almost 10,000 times. I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times. You figure a ballplayer will average about 500 at bats a season. That means I played seven years without ever hitting the ball. — Mickey Mantle

This year I'd rather lead the league in home runs, runs batted in and hitting. — Mickey Mantle

Chipper Jones will be in the Hall of Fame. The #1 overall pick in the 1990 draft, Chipper will be remembered as the greatest switch-hitting third baseman in baseball history. — Tucker Elliot

I love sharing my knowledge of hitting with others. Now coaches and players at all levels can learn my systematic approach to hitting a baseball with more consistency, mental strength and accuracy. — Dusty Baker

I was hitting .360 when I was diagnosed. I didn't forget how to play while I was recovering. I don't know if the cancer is gone for good. I don't think anyone ever knows, but no one is going to steal my joy for as along as I'm able to play baseball. — Eric Davis

Unfortunately, (the rumors) are going to be a part of it. But that's OK. I'm probably tested more than anybody else. I'm not hiding anything. That stuff didn't help me hit home runs. I don't care what people say, nothing is going to give you that gift of hitting a baseball. — Jason Giambi

Since baseball time is measured only in outs, all you have to do is succeed utterly; keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time. You remain forever young. Sitting in the stands, we sense this, if only dimly. The players below us - Mays, DiMaggio, Ruth, Snodgrass - swim and blur in memory, the ball floats over to Terry Turner, and the end of this game may never come. — Roger Angell

I don't think baseball could survive without all the statistical appurtenances involved in calculating pitching, hitting and fielding percentages. Some people could do without the games as long as they got the box scores. — John M. Culkin

I would think I drive most hitting coaches crazy. During one single at-bat I used six different stances on six pitches. Oh yeah, I also struck out. So what do I know? — John Kruk

Rick Miller hit only one home run last year, and that's like hitting none. — Jerry Coleman

The key to hitting for high average is to relax, concentrate, and don't hit the fly ball to center field. — Stan Musial

Wheaties was the big sponsor in those days (1940s). They sponsored almost all the baseball games in the majors and the minors. That was a lot of Wheaties. I think there were twenty-four boxes in a case and some of these guys were hitting twenty-five and thirty home runs a season. We had a dog in those days named Blue Grass and the players used to give us their Wheaties for him. Blue Grass loved Wheaties and so did I. — Ernie Harwell

Indeed, the maligned American pastime of baseball may be by-far the greatest and best sport by one criterion, when it comes to emulating and training for genuinely useful Neolithic skills! Think about it. The game consists of lots of patient waiting and watching (stalking), throwing with incredible accuracy and speed, sprinting, dodging ... and hitting moving objects real hard with clubs! And arguing. Hey, what else could you possibly need? Now, tell me, how do soccer or basketball prepare you to survive in the wild, hm? — David Brin

To me, personally, it doesn't matter what color I am. Black or white, Asian or Hispanic, it doesn't matter to me as long as the message I'm portraying to people that watch me on TV is positive and it shows that they can do things that are different besides catching a football, hitting a baseball or shooting a basketball. I'm just showing them that stepping outside the bubble is OK and they can be successful at it. — Shani Davis

Other than hitting the ball ... there's nothing else I have ever done or know how to do. How to live on the outside, how to earn a living, how to take of my family, I'm a stupid idiot who doesn't know how to do any of that. Therefore ... Please let me play baseball. — Kim Young-kwang

I know I'm the world's worst fielder, but who gets paid for fielding? There isn't a great fielder in baseball getting the kind of dough I get paid for hitting. — Dick Stuart

Hitting a baseball well, as in cricket, is a very rare skill. One of most difficult things to do in the world to do, hitting a ball coming at you at ninety miles an hour with a round bat. Wonderful to watch. — Peter Tork

In baseball and sex, cliches are usually true: pitching beats hitting, and people always want to be loved by anyone who doesn't seem to care. — Chuck Klosterman

Baseball was a chapter in my life, and now I'm excited to start another chapter as a hitting coach. — Mark McGwire

It is the difference between hitting with a pillow and hitting with a baseball bat. — William Brohaugh

Freddie Freeman led all Braves' starters with a (.282) batting average in 2011. Not bad for a rookie. Then again, this is the kid who hit his first big league bomb against none other than Roy Halladay ... the same kid whose leather at first is so flashy than at times it's hard to decide which to be more excited about, his bat or his glove, the same kid who joined teammate Dan Uggla with concurrent 20-game hitting streaks in 2011 - a first in modern era Braves' history - and the same kid who won NL Rookie of the Month honors in July after hitting .362 with six homers, 17 runs, and 18 RBIs. — Tucker Elliot

The other sports are just sports. Baseball is a love. — Bryant Gumbel

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