Top 100 Hitter Quotes
#1. If I've got a good pinch-hitter, I hate to have him stay on the bench with men on the bases in an early inning. He may end the game right there.
Casey Stengel
#2. Tom Hanks has taken George Clooney's place as the big-hitter driving a lot of liberal causes.
Bill O'Reilly
#3. A lot of people just thought I'd be a .260 hitter all my life. I was kind of like, 'Let me make some adjustments and let me learn the game a little bit.'
Jeff Francoeur
#4. I believe I'm a middle-of-the-order hitter capable of driving in runs. If I stay healthy, I'll get back to that level.
Justin Morneau
#5. When I stood up there as a pinch hitter, I honestly believed I was the best hitter in the game. That's the only attitude to have.
Manny Mota
#6. Ted Williams was the greatest hitter I ever saw, but DiMaggio was the greatest all around player.
Bob Feller
#7. No one had to tell me I was never going to be a home run hitter. I was hitting the same ball as the rest of the players, but when the big guys cracked one, it went out of the park. Mine went out of the infield.
Nellie Fox
#8. I am a better hitter with runners in scoring position.
Robinson Cano
#9. I was always small. I was a leadoff hitter growing up, until I was 13 or 14 years old and had a little growth spurt and started hitting home runs.
Ryan Braun
#10. When life throws you curve balls, become a curve ball hitter.
C.L. Swinney
#11. I used to be a mad hitter. And then I learned the longer you wait out the ball, the better you see it. And the better you see it, the harder you hit it. And the harder you hit it, the higher your average is going to be. And the higher your average is, the more money you're going to make.
George Brett
#12. I guess I'm the only guy old enough to figure him (Nolan Ryan, 1-Hitter Game in 1991) out.
Dave Winfield
#13. The mark of a good hitter is someone who hits the ball hard, often. And if you run into a few home runs, that's fine.
Lance Berkman
#14. What makes a good leadoff hitter? Deion Sanders had speed, but he wasn't the ideal leadoff hitter. What was his on-base percentage? The criteria shouldn't be speed, it should be getting on base.
Jack McKeon
#15. My biggest regret was letting my lifetime average drop below .300. I always felt I was a .300 hitter, and if I could change one thing that would be it.
Mickey Mantle
#16. The arc of Ken Griffey Jr.'s swing has gotten bigger than when he hit line drives. Juan Gonzalez is a terrific power hitter, too.
Tony La Russa
#17. I'm a fastball hitter. It's no secret I'm looking for a fastball every pitch. I think it's one of the hardest things to do in sports-to hit a moving baseball.
Carlos Delgado
#18. I was a contact hitter my whole career but I learned how to handle the ball inside. And Ted Williams played a big part in that. He gave me the advice on how to handle inside pitches.
Tony Gwynn
#19. I knew that the Mets had never had a no-hitter. I never had one. This is very special. I knew this means a lot to New York.
Johan Santana
#20. Carlton does not pitch to the hitter, he pitches through him. The batter hardly exists for Steve. He's playing an elevated game of catch.
Tim McCarver
#21. One absolutely cannot tell, by watching, the difference between a .300 hitter and a .275 hitter. The difference is one hit every two weeks.
Michael Lewis
#22. I give him (Frank Howard during April 28, 1968 two-hitter) shoulder, back, foot and the ball last," and Frank Howard commented, "He threw everything at me but the ball.
Luis Tiant
#23. The British are actually a lot more appreciative of the comic. In Canada, if you're perceived as a comic writer, there's a real snobbery, and you can't be serious. You're not a big hitter.
Miriam Toews
#24. I've won plenty of games by knowing when to take out my pitcher; whom to replace him with; or how to place my infield or outfield to defend properly against the opposing hitter.
Walter Alston
#25. Although he is a very poor fielder, he is a very poor hitter.
Ring Lardner
#26. I'm always amazed when a pitcher becomes angry at a hitter for hitting a home run off him. When I strike out, I don't get angry at the pitcher, I get angry at myself. I would think that if a pitcher threw up a home run ball, he should be angry at himself.
Willie Stargell
#27. The Brooklyn Dodgers had a no hitter last night.
Bob Dole
#28. There's been times where I've come out of the bullpen thinking I was going to throw a no hitter, and I've lasted two or three innings. So I try not to use my pre-game warm ups as a barometer of how I'm going to pitch.
Tim Wakefield
#29. The hitter can never be the judge. Only the receiver of the blow can tell you how hard it was, whether it would kill a man or make a baby just yawn.
Edward P. Jones
#30. If I was crazy, I'd throw the ball into the stands with the bases loaded. Now, that's crazy. If I was stupid, I'd throw the ball into center field with the bases loaded and a 3-2 count on the hitter. Now, that's stupid.
Joaquin Andujar
#31. People think the leadoff spot is a big deal. I tell people you're going to lead off the first inning, and after that, you can be a No. 4 hitter or No. 3 hitter.
Andruw Jones
#32. I wish I was just a left-handed hitter. It's really tough having to keep both sides sharp, and that's one reason why you don't see switch-hitters hit for that high of an average. You're always fighting one side or the other.
Lance Berkman
#33. Ben Hogan was not really a big hitter. He was long enough. But Ben Hogan today? Ben Hogan today could not compete at Augusta because he did not have the massive length to compete against the long hitters. Power was always an issue at Augusta, but never so dominant that you couldn't play it.
Jack Nicklaus
#34. There are always things to improve on. I want to improve on my defense, and you can never be a perfect hitter. I want to focus on just playing more and being able to improve on all parts of my game.
Mark Teixeira
#35. I cant think of anything more humiliating than losing a ballgame to a guy who steals home on you. It happened to me one time against Kansas City. I had a 2-2 count on the hitter - and Amos Otis broke from third. The pitch was a ball and slid in safe. I felt like a nickel.
Nolan Ryan
#36. I am an arm hitter. When you snap the bat with your wrists just as you meet the ball, you give the bat tremendous speed for a few inches of its course. The speed with which the bat meets the ball is the thing that counts.
Zack Wheat
#37. What's pretty important, and least was for me, (related an exceptionally good pinch-hitter on the pressures involved with failing with so much at stake) you can't be afraid to enjoy the moment.
Tim Wendel
#38. A good player who is a great putter is a match for any golfer. A great hitter who cannot putt is a match for no one.
Ben Sayers
#39. A hitter's impatience is the pitcher's biggest advantage.
Pete Rose
#40. That's one of the great oddities of baseball: Success is relative. A hitter who fails 70 percent of the time at the plate is a potential member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and many World Championship teams lose more than 70 games during their title-winning seasons.
Don Yaeger
#41. People always told me that my natural ability and good eyesight were the reasons for my success as a hitter. They never talk about the practice, practice, practice.
Ted Williams
#42. The basis of intimidation as I practiced it was mystery. I wanted the hitter to know nothing about me.
Bob Gibson
#44. A successful pitcher keeps the leadoff hitter from reaching first base and puts the first pitch over for a strike - the two most important rules of pitching.
Nolan Ryan
#45. A man has to have goals - for a day, for a lifetime - and that was mine, to have people say, 'There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived.
Ted Willams
#46. You would be amazed how many important outs you can get by working the count down to where the hitter is sure you're going to throw to his weakness, and then throw to his power instead.
Whitey Ford
#47. I don't like the designated hitter. A guy who plays should be able to catch and hit.
Marge Schott
#48. What is life, after all, but a challenge? And what better challenge can there be than the one between the pitcher and the hitter.
Warren Spahn
#49. I've been streaky throughout my career, but I've been trying to become a more consistent hitter.
Travis Hafner
#50. You never know when you're going to throw a no-hitter or if you're ever going to get the chance to do it. It's one of those deals where the ninth inning comes around; it's either going to be your night or just a complete game.
Jon Lester
#51. There's different kinds of laughs. It's like a baseball lineup: this guy's your power hitter, this guy gets on base, this guy works out walks. If everybody does their job, we're gonna win.
Jerry Seinfeld
#52. I copied (Shoeless Joe) Jackson's style because I thought he was the greatest hitter I had ever seen, the greatest natural hitter I ever saw. He's the guy who made me a hitter.
Babe Ruth
#53. To be a good hitter you've got to do one thing - get a good ball to hit.
Rogers Hornsby
#54. 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
#55. He foresaw the platooning that managers like Casey Stengel used years before it happened. He told me I had to be a switch-hitter if I was going to play.
Mickey Mantle
#56. I don't think I'm a home run hitter. Most of my home runs are line drives. If I hit it, thanks God. But it's not the kind of thing that I think about. I just go out there and try to have a better season than I had before. Home runs are not in my mind.
Robinson Cano
#57. A great hitter isn't born, he's made. He's made out of practice, fault correction, and confidence.
Rogers Hornsby
#58. I want to be the best leadoff hitter of our time.
Johnny Damon
#59. A good lead-off hitter is a pain in the ass to pitchers.
Richie Ashburn
#60. Maintaining concentration depends on what I call tunnel vision; nothing else in the world exists but the catcher's target, the hitter and my perfect delivery.
Nolan Ryan
#61. Traditionally, baseball punishes preening. In a society increasingly tolerant of exhibitionism, it is splendid when a hitter is knocked down because in his last at bat he lingered at the plate to admire his home run.
George Will
#62. 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.
Ted Williams
#63. Despite popular belief, hitting someone with a closed fist actually hurts the hitter almost as much as the hittee.
Ally Carter
#64. When you start a game, you don't think to yourself, "well, OK, I'm going throw a one-hitter today." It just becomes an organism, your outing becomes an organism and it grows.
R.A. Dickey
#65. Your goal as a hitter is to get on. And if the third baseman is playing back and letting you lay down a bunt, I don't have a problem with that, even if it's late in a no-hitter.
Bert Blyleven
#66. The no-hitter was the highlight of my career. The specialness of it, I didn't know how lasting it would be when it happened. Everywhere I go, people talk about that game, how exciting it was. That makes me very proud. I'm awfully happy that a ball didn't bloop in somewhere.
Jim Abbott
#67. There's nobody on my ball club that doesn't go from first to third on a base hit, or from second to home. Every time you steal a base, you're taking a gamble on getting thrown out, and taking the bat out of the hitter's hand.
Casey Stengel
#68. You could have the bases loaded, and you bring up the best pinch-hitter in the world to pinch hit, he hits into a double play, and then all of a sudden: 'How could you do that?'
Joe Torre
#69. A lot of pitchers today are afraid of the ball. Warren Spahn pinch-hit for me when I was a rookie. He hit a sacrifice fly. I couldn't argue. I was 20 years old and just happy to be in the big leagues. And Spahnnie was a good hitter.
Joe Torre
#70. Pitchers don't need to hit well; they need to pitch well. Every step you create needs to do what it does best and nothing more. Focus allows you to pursue excellence, to zero in on the target. You can ruin a great pitcher by trying to make a hitter out of him, and you can ruin a great church ...
Andy Stanley
#71. I wonder why there is a designated hitter in baseball after all these years? As an experiment, it seemed like a swell enough idea, but you would think the novelty would have worn off by now and everyone would get back to playing baseball.
Jay Mohr
#72. I'm a different hitter than Chipper Jones. He goes up looking for certain pitches to hit. I go up there looking for something over the plate and try to hit it hard.
Jeff Francoeur
#73. I was the worst hitter ever. I never even broke a bat until last year when I was backing out of the garage.
Lefty Gomez
#74. The pitcher has to find out if the hitter is timid, and if he is timid, he has to remind the hitter he's timid.
Don Drysdale
#75. There is no doubt that because I am a switch hitter I have one of the best offensive advantages that a hitter can have.
Pete Rose
#76. Mike Laga will make you forget about every power hitter that ever lived.
Sparky Anderson
#77. Actually punching is a mistake; a heavy hitter will cut you with one shot.
Alexis Arguello
#78. Sometimes the hitter get a hit, sometimes I strike them out, but in niether case does anyone die.
Orlando Hernandez
#79. I'm probably an average hitter, at least, and if you talk to my peers, they will tell you that I hit the ball plenty far enough.
Luke Donald
#80. One of the best ways to [improve my longevity] that is to minimize injury or avoid it by being more flexible-especially when we are meeting at the net. There is a hitter and blocker, which means a lot foot contact, where you can twist your ankle easily.
Karch Kiraly
#81. It helps if the hitter thinks you're a little crazy.
Nolan Ryan
#82. Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgement and nothing can help you escape it - that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life.
Ayn Rand
#83. 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
#84. Ted Williams, an extraordinary hitter in his day, has said the swing starts in the hips, and Sosa arrived with one of the strongest lower bodies in the game.
Bill Dedman
#85. The key to pitching is to have the ability to throw a strike when they're taking and throw a ball when the hitter is swinging.
Greg Maddux
#86. Anytime you can see a hitter and face a hitter, you gain knowledge, and you gain that experience. Whether they hit a homerun off you, or you strike them out or whatever it is, it's information.
Jon Lester
#87. A good hitter has timing. A good pitcher upsets timing.
Warren Spahn
#88. The biggest thing I want is for the hitter coming up behind me to get a good pitch to hit.
Johnny Damon
#89. I don't really look at myself as a power hitter. I look at myself as someone who drives the ball to the gaps, hits line drives.
Andrew McCutchen
#90. I study pitchers. I visualize pitches. That gives me a better chance every time I step into the box. That doesn't mean I'm going to get a hit every game, but that's one of the reasons I've come a long way as a hitter.
Mark McGwire
#91. You're not going to be a 1.000 hitter all the time. You're going to be more wrong than right. You just have to correct your errors as quickly, as economically, as possible.
Les Wexner
#92. That no-hitter stuff was a long time ago; I don't think that has anything to do with it. I'm just going through a tough time.
Johan Santana
#93. Playing shortstop is 75 to 80 percent anticipation, knowing the hitter and the pitch being thrown.
Lou Boudreau
#94. All the publicity, the attention, the interviews, the photographs, were too much for me (after throwing his second no-hitter in 1938).
Johnny Vander Meer
#95. 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
#96. 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
#97. I told him (Pete Rose, Jr.) who to watch. I said if you want to be a catcher, watch Johnny Bench. If you want to be a right-handed power hitter, watch Mike Schmidt. If you just want to be a hitter, watch me.
Pete Rose
#98. My mother used to pitch to me and my father would shag balls. If I hit one up the middle close to my mother, I'd have some extra chores to do. My mother was instrumental in making me a pull hitter.
Eddie Mathews
#99. I was the most powerful left-handed hitter in the Alameda area.
Willie Stargell
#100. Every hitter likes fastballs, just like everybody likes ice cream. But you don't like it when someone's stuffing it into you by the gallon. That's what it feels like when Nolan Ryan's thrown balls by you.
Reggie Jackson
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