I take great pride in my defense because the bat is not always going to be there.
I think the higher you can bat in your Shield team, if you’re doing well there the better off you’re going to be for batting anywhere in the Test line-up or any of the line-ups.
In street ball, you really don’t care about playing defense, unless it’s some kind of flashy steal or a big block where you bat the ball across the court, but all you’re really worried about is scoring.
After getting dropped from the Australian team, for me it was always just about being the team, it doesn’t matter where I bat.
We are starting off with our own different characters and our own laws and everything, looking at Bruce Wayne and how he came to be the person that he was and how he comes to be this man that jumps around in the Bat suit.
That was the bat signal for me – ‘Rent’ changed my life. It took me years before I got beyond that show.
I’m not afraid to swing the bat. If they elect to pitch to me, I’m going to swing. I’m not as picky as Mr. Sheffield. I’ll swing at something over my head.
For my striking, I’ve learned to adapt it right off the bat for MMA. Even my jiu-jitsu, I adapt it very much for MMA.
People always ask me how I can hit the ball so far, and I say, ‘I just swing.’ It’s the coaches who first told me I had good bat speed. I was just swinging, and I guess it was fast. I’m pretty fast at everything.
The more allrounders you have, the more difficult it becomes for the opposition. The reason being, if you have players who can bat and bowl, and if they are proper allrounders – they may be spinning or fast-bowling allrounders – they add to the strength of the team.
It’s important to get well-rounded right off the bat. A lot of experienced dancers can get pigeonholed into one thing. I’ve been hired for a lot of different gigs simply because I can do a lot of different things with different levels of dancers. And it’s sad to me that some dancers don’t do more.
You have to stay fresh and blank in your mind when you go out to bat. You complicate things, and you’re gone.
How do you combat a man with a firearm? You don’t combat him with a golf club, baseball bat or a knife. You combat him with another firearm.
I sort of know my role with the ball but with the bat I’ve been up and down the order quite a few times.
One thing I can say right off the bat is that creating great editorial is a huge challenge, and you can’t help but go through the process and not appreciate how valuable this skill is, and how much I admire the people who do this every day.
For India, it is all about whatever number they want me to bat and not the other way round.
My batting practice would be a guy throwing balls in the way in which I liked it. It was all about getting ball on bat, rather than something whizzing past your ear.
I’ve always said when I broke in I was an average player. I had an average arm, average speed and definitely an average bat. I am still average in all of those.
Used to be bats had thick handles and a big barrel. Then they found it’s not the size of the bat that gets home runs – it’s the speed with which you can swing it.
A full mind is an empty bat.
I’m blind as a bat.
I can’t bring a sword into the ground, so have to make do with the bat.
My wife and I have this discussion all the time. Her primal influences are J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald. Mine are Rudyard Kipling, Edith Nesbit and T.H. White. So, we have certain structural differences in form and content right off the bat!
As a captain, you sit on the sidelines and it’s evident the best place to bat is up front.
I got scars on my face that tell some kind of story. I’m looking in the mirror, and I got one scar that’s really two scars – half from a baseball bat and half from playing football in college. I’ll tell you, though, after a while, your face gets so wrinkled up you can hardly see them.
I try to keep the ball up to the bat, and I usually get the ball to outswing, so I get wickets like that.
We found that just by the way we stood, affected women dramatically, and if you look at our show, you’ll see that we always stood with our legs open our fists on hips and our bat bulges forward, which had a profound effect on women!
There are certain things I can’t do, certain pitches I can’t hit. You stay away from them. You try to wait for pitches you can hit. The bat speed isn’t what it used to be. You make up for it by using your head, working counts, getting ahead in counts and getting pitches to hit and hitting them hard.
If you’ve learned anything from the modern superhero myth, if you see a bat around and it bites you, you have a 75 percent chance of ending up a superhero. Otherwise, you’ll probably get really sick. But it’d be cool to be a superhero. You don’t need to be too afraid.
It’s always good to bat at the top, where you get more opportunities, but sometimes crucial 30s and 40s can be very helpful for the team. Ultimately it is a team sport. Personal records don’t matter much if your team ends up on the losing side.
I say all the time that when you first meet me, you know three things right off the bat: I’m Nigerian, I love to laugh, and I love Jesus.
I learned to bat and bowl on different pitches and knew when to go hard and when to back off. It was just something I learned.
There have been a few times in my career when I have been close to tears after completing an innings, but rarely when I am waiting to bat.
When the others grew tired and went home and there was no one else to play with I used to play my own Test matches on the porch of our house, using a broom handle or a stick as the bat and a marble as the ball. I would arrange the pot plants to represent fielders and try to find the gaps as I played my shots.
There are very rare occasions when you get a good wicket to bat on, but whatever wicket you get, you have to play at least 20 overs for your side.
To stay sane, I lived in my head, where I could travel and imagine. In my mind, I played a championship game with the Knicks. I won Wimbledon five times. If the Yankees needed a home run, I came to bat.
We all know just bowling won’t do in modern international cricket, and we have to contribute with the bat and as a fielder, too.
The easiest way around the bases is with one swing of the bat.
My first five years on this planet were spent in Sudan and Zambia and after a short stint in London my family finally settled in Sydney. Right off the bat I knew I was different from the other kids.
Growing up in New Jersey, bat mitzvas were all about the elegant parties.
I can bat in the morning, afternoon, evening, night, on ice, desert, wherever and whenever. It is almost nirvana for me. It takes me away from the stresses of life.
The first time I picked up a bat in a professional game, I hit a ball hard left-handed, and my first home run was so effortless, it surprised me.
If you aim for parody right off the bat and it misses, no offense to the filmmakers, but it is Meet the Spartans.
But put it this way: if I have a bad day keeping, I know I can put it right with the bat, and vice versa. When it all comes together, happy days.
Hit a home run – put your head down, drop the bat, run around the bases, because the name on the front is more – a lot more important than the name on the back.
It’s flattering to be compared to Kohli. He is very consistent, and his mindset is very good. He gives his 100 per cent every time he walks out to bat.
To cure a batting slump, I took my bat to bed with me. I wanted to know my bat a little better.
Baseball just a came as simple as a ball and bat. Yet, as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. A sport, a business and sometimes almost even a religion.
I was a heathen Jewess with no bat mitzvah. Only the neurosis, the brown hair, and the self-deprecating humor. But being one of the only Jewish kids in my WASPy hometown definitely informed my perspective on the humor of being an outsider.
I had great control, I never missed hitting the other’s fellow bat.
I wasn’t bat mitzvahed.
Cam Newton, his best throw is better than anybody’s best throw. I’m gonna say that right off the bat. But I will take consistency over volatile play any day of the week.
As an international batsman, I have to come out to bat under any situation. Sometimes a platform has been laid; on others, we have to build one. That’s part of our job, and that’s why international cricket is so challenging.
Decide while you’re young to keep the commandments of God, and you won’t have to think fast, because before temptation even steps up to the bat, you’ll have made your decision. You were smart enough to think first.
Fans love McGwire for his powerful physique, for his on-field hugs of his son, the part-time bat boy. He is Big Mac, or Paul Bunyan in Cardinals red with a white-ash bat instead of an ax.
When I wasn’t working on Broadway, I worked in a Bat Mitzvah dress shop and was the Cinderella of the shop – always cleaning and vacuuming!
I like wearing good clothes. Some of my friends who are into making clothes told me since I was already playing with my own brand of bat sticker, I should make a foray in fashion. The idea has worked very well.
I’ve got a right to knock down anybody holding a bat.
My main strength is my bowling, but where I bat, I can also contribute for the team, and that is important.
