Goose Gossage is a friend of mine, and he’s definitely a Hall of Fame pitcher in my mind.
Baseball skills schizophrenically encompass a pitcher’s, a batter’s and a fielder’s.
Personally, I think fans would rather watch a DH hit than a pitcher hit.
In the split second from the time the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand until it reaches the plate you have to think about your stride, your hip action, your wrist action, determine how much, if any the ball is going to break and then decide whether to swing at it.
A pitcher’s arm goes, and they’re done.
A pitcher needs two pitches, one they’re looking for and one to cross them up.
I’m probably the only relief pitcher who has more saves than strikeouts.
No baseball pitcher would be worth a darn without a catcher who could handle the hot fastball.
You have to go up there, and it’s you vs. the pitcher. No one’s there to help you. That’s how I go about it.
A pitcher has to look at the hitter as his mortal enemy.
I want to be the best pitcher in the world.
When you’re up there and everything feels good and you’re competing against the pitcher and the pitcher strikes you out, you’re like, ‘OK, yeah, I struck out, but that’s OK.’
Be aggressive… That’s the type of pitcher I am. I go as hard as I can for as long as I can and see where the cards fall.
Momentum? Momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher.
There’s nothing like being a pitcher on the mound. You’re by yourself. Ever since I was a little kid watching Pedro Martinez do it, night in and night out. I’ve always loved it.
We’re pretty good at putting bunts down and really good at hitting. I know as a pitcher, when you face a pitcher you know can hit, that’s not fun. I think taking pride in that, and being able to hit helps your own cause.
If we want the best pitcher, let’s get Bobby Feller. If want the best football player, let’s get Jimmy Brown; the best basketball player, let’s get Bill Russell. If we want the guy who can do the best job for the United States – let’s get Donald Trump.
Verlander is a guy every right-handed power pitcher looks up to since the beginning of time.
I’m not really a pitcher; I just play one in the movies.
Everyone watches everyone pitch. If they’re doing good, you’re trying to take something out of them. I’ve taken something from probably every average to above-average pitcher I’ve ever played with – what they do. You see what they do and how you can put that into your game.
I never knew how to throw a fastball, never learned how to throw a curveball, a slider, split-finger, whatever they’re throwing nowadays. I was a one-pitch pitcher.
The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real.
I loved baseball. I was a pitcher. I loved being on the mound because I also loved being at the center of the action, the cat and mouse battle with the batter on every pitch. You had to develop grit.
If I ever find a pitcher who has heat, a good curve, and a slider, I might seriously consider marrying him, or at least proposing.
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.
A pitcher’s windup and throw is an explosive, coordinated full-body movement. They perform the move once, then rest, then perform it again. There is nothing aerobic about it.
I was really happy with the 2,000th hit, because before the at-bat, I wanted to make sure my uniform looked good, my socks looked good. I made sure that way, if there’s a highlight, I at least look my best. It was a really good at-bat. I was very happy, because the pitcher was throwing very tough pitches that at-bat.
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.
The best compliment you can give a hitter is he’s a tough out; that initiates fear in a pitcher.
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.
There’s only one way to become a hitter. Go up to the plate and get mad. Get mad at yourself and mad at the pitcher.
If there’s pressure to prove I am worth the investment, or that I am the real deal, or the pitcher from last season or whatever – I don’t know, I just don’t feel that.
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.
AT&T Park, chalk it up. This is a great pitcher’s park, great weather. It’s a great place to pitch. It’s all positive and no negative. You can go out and challenge guys. I’ve got the confidence to attack the strike zone and not nibble so much.
I created a little thing with my hands, just to create a more consistent plane to backspin balls, and obviously growing into your body helps. It’s kind of complicated, more about starting the barrel flat and then creating a movement – flat to up, I guess – going towards the pitcher.
I consciously memorized the speed at which every pitcher in the league threw his fastball, curve, and slider. Then, I’d pick up the speed of the ball in the first 30 feet of its flight and knew how it would move once it has crossed the plate.
A guy that throws what he intends to throw, that’s the definition of a good pitcher.
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.
The pitcher has the ball, and nothing happens until he lets go of it. So as the batter, I felt I had to fight for any bit of control I could get. I expected the umpire, the catcher, and the pitcher to wait on me. I wanted to get ready on my time.
Fix your eye on the ball from the moment the pitcher holds it in his glove. Follow it as he throws to the plate and stay with it until the play is completed. Action takes place only where the ball goes.
The overall thinking of the shortstop covers the overall context of the ballgame. You have to know the count they’ll hit-and-run on. You’re thinking of the speed, not only of the runner at first base, but the runner at the plate. You have to know how fast the pitcher is on a particular day.
In baseball, I was a pitcher, which I hated because there was no action there.
I never faced a pitcher with better stuff than Nolan Ryan.
It was much more fun playing with him than against him. If you wanted one pitcher to start the seventh game of the World Series, which he did in 1945, you’d pick Hal Newhouser.
You better be looking for another pitcher.
Every great batter works on the theory that the pitcher is more afraid of him than he is of the pitcher.
You can’t go out to the mound hobbling and take a pitcher out with a cane.
I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.
I was in the big leagues my first year in pro ball – pretty fast. I really don’t think I had an understanding of what it meant to be a pitcher at that level at that point.
I’m a good hitter for a pitcher.
One time I was doing a speech to a group of kids, and just before I get there, I see this little kid crying. I found out they just lost a game, and he was the losing pitcher. I went over there, put my arm around him, and said, ‘What are you crying for? When major league players lose, they don’t cry.’
In the minor leagues, previous to 2008, I took a lot of pitches. I prided myself on on-base percentage. I made sure that I made the pitcher work.
I played American Legion ball starting when I was 14. But I didn’t catch until I was 17. I was 75-3 as a high school pitcher, but it was like everybody knew that I was supposed to be a catcher. When the scouts would come around, and I was pitching, they’d make me take infield practice so the scouts could watch me throw.
I’m always just grinding and figuring out what adjustment I need to make and how to tweak my swing to where I want it to be for that game and that pitcher.
The way we’re going… if I called up another pitcher, he’d just hang up the phone on me.
I don’t mean to diminish the job, it’s a good job and a real pressure job. But I don’t think a relief pitcher should ever be the most valuable player of a league. We only play in maybe half of the games. Being a relief pitcher means part-time employment. We’re bench players, and bench players shouldn’t be M.V.P.
The pitcher has got only a ball. I’ve got a bat. So the percentage in weapons is in my favor and I let the fellow with the ball do the fretting.
It takes 20 victories for people to recognize you as a great pitcher.
If I could help the pitcher as much as I can, or I could save three to five errors a year with my defense, then that’s just a big help for my teammates.
It’s always, ‘No matter what the outing is, you can always find a way to be a better pitcher.’ No matter what you do.
You can’t use your hot pitcher three nights in a row. You’ve got to let your stars freshen up and back off them.
