Pitching Mound Quotes & Sayings

As soon as I got out there I felt a strange relationship with the pitcher's mound. It was as if I'd been born out there. Pitching just felt like the most natural thing in the world. Striking out batters was easy. — Babe Ruth

I remember one time going out to the mound to talk with Bob Gibson. He told me to get back behind the batter; that the only thing I knew about pitching was that it was hard to hit! — Tim McCarver

There's very few pitching coaches that I worked with that actually came out on the mound and told me what I was doing wrong with the knuckleball. Because they just didn't know. So I had to figure it out. I was on my own. — Phil Niekro

One curve I'll always remember was when I was pitching for Pittsburgh. Terry Kennedy was a young player with St. Louis. I threw him an 0-2 curve and it snapped. Terry's reaction was to swing straight down, like he was chopping the plate with an axe. It was the last out of the inning. After I ran off the mound, I looked over at the St. Louis dugout. There were players rolling around on the floor, laughing. Poor Terry. I'll have to admit that was a hell of a curveball. — Bert Blyleven

I think I rushed and I needed more time with my comeback. I needed more time to get my legs stronger to be able to handle the workload. You can only train for that by pitching innings. You can't simulate pitching off a mound in a game inside a weight room. — David Cone

The 16 years have gone so fast. I came to Minnesota as a 19-year-old kid. Marv Grissom was the pitching coach, an old-timer who taught me quite a bit. Marv didn't like the way I stepped toward the plate. I had a tendency to throw across my body. So, he took me off to the side at Met Stadium and put a chair on the mound. If I threw across my body, I would step on the chair. Marv was trying to hurt me. I fooled him. I started stepping the right way. — Bert Blyleven

I owe everything I have to them when I'm out there on the mound. But I owe the fans nothing and they owe me nothing when I am not pitching. — Christy Mathewson

If we lose today, it will be over my dead body. They'll have to leave me face down on the mound. — Luis Tiant

Consistency is something you can always improve on. You can be more consistent with your mental approach, the things you do physically on the mound. Instead of doing 5 good pitches an inning, try to make six. You can always do more of what you are doing well and try to be as consistent as you can be. — Greg Maddux

If you're a pitcher, and you're pitching and you strike me out and you start celebrating on the mound and showing me off, whenever I get a hit off you, I'm going to go and celebrate, and you shouldn't get mad. If you're a pitcher and strike me out and show me respect and you don't show me up, when I get a homer or a hit, I'm not going to show you up. That's what I believe. — Bengie Molina

The two biggest things that translate from the pitching mound to hunting and fishing are patience and perseverance. When you're on the mound, you have to take the game one pitch at a time, regardless of the score, and that approach helps when I'm in the woods or on the water as well. — Jon Lester

Or there, in the clay-baked piedmont of the South, that lean and tan-faced boy who sprawls there in the creaking chair among admiring cronies before the open doorways of the fire department, and tells them how he pitched the team to shut-out victory to-day. What visions burn, what dreams possess him, seeker of the night? The packed stands of the stadium, the bleachers sweltering with their unshaded hordes, the faultless velvet of the diamond, unlike the clay-balked outfields down in Georgia. The mounting roar of eighty thousand voices and Gehrig coming up to bat, the boy himself upon the pitching mound, the lean face steady as a hound's; then the nod, the signal, and the wind-up, the rawhide arm that snaps and crackles like a whip, the small white bullet of the blazing ball, its loud report in the oiled pocket of the catcher's mitt, the umpire's thumb jerked upwards, the clean strike. — Thomas Wolfe

Tiant, noted for odd pitching mannerisms, is also a famous mound dawdler. Stands on hill like sunstruck archeologist at Knossos. Regards ruins. Studies sun. Studies landscape. Looks at artifact in hand. Wonders: Keep this potsherd or throw it away? Does Smithsonian want it? Hmm. Prepares to throw it away. Pauses. Sudd. discovers writing on object. Hmm. Possible Linear B inscript.? Sighs. Decides. Throws. Wipes face. Repeats whole thing. Innings & hours creep by. Spectators clap, yawn, droop, expire. — Roger Angell

Your pitching coach is almost like your spouse. He's someone to go to when you want to gripe and complain. The big thing for me with Mel (Stottlemyre) is that we've been through so much together. He's been through everything I've been through on the mound. He was a Yankee who won twenty games in New York and a Yankee who didn't win twenty games in New York. For me, he's been there and that's what makes a good pitching coach. He's a good man, too. — Andy Pettitte