Imagine the ball has little legs, and chop them off.
Your job is to umpire for the ball and not the player.
Most ball games are lost, not won.
I started out real young as a tight end, but I was never getting the football. I knew when I played basketball, I loved to have control of the ball. When I played baseball, I was a pitcher. I always wanted to be the guy throwing the passes and making a difference, I guess.
I learned to approach racing like a game of billiards. If you bash the ball too hard, you get nowhere. As you handle the cue properly, you drive with more finesse.
I love exercise, but I didn't join a single sports club as a student - I have no hand-eye coordination. Things like yoga are amazing, but anything with a ball just isn't for me.
The challenge for me has first been to see things as they are, whether a portrait, a city street, or a bouncing ball. In a word, I have tried to be objective.
To catch the ball, face up, look at all of my options and then pass. I was playing hot potato. I didn't want to be the guy to stall the triangle.
In the building I live in on Park Avenue there are ten people who could buy the Yankees, but none of them could hit the ball out of Yankee Stadium.
We're not running the ball again until we get ahead. Shula was calling the plays, but I told them, 'I don't care what he calls. We're throwing every pass from now until we get the lead.' To Shula's credit, he always gave me that option.
My first year of pro ball I played in the Northwest league and made the all-star team, and the next year I played I led the team in hitting and was third or fifth in the league.
Sometimes, it's good to have a tremendous star, because everyone understands he has to get the ball.
My thought has always been completion. Maybe you have to rebound better, shoot better, hit free throws, handle the ball, defend better. You have to do all those things in the course of a game.
I play with a lot of emotion because I'm a passionate guy, and I play with that passion. I love playing that way. Sometimes you're late onto the ball, sometimes you're not. Sometimes you make contact with the guy when you tackle him, sometimes not. It's a sport where individual duels are vital, so I don't see it as a problem.
I always tried to hit the ball back through the box because that is the largest unprotected area.
Ross Perot. I could have had a ball with him.
The big push for me is the Olympics this year. If I'm healthy, I'm not worried about my ranking. I think I can hit the ball. It's just about my body cooperating. It's about being able to play matches in a row. Right now, I'm not sure how much I can do with that, but we'll see.
The tennis ball doesn't know how old I am. The ball doesn't know if I'm a man or a woman or if I come from a communist country or not. Sport has always broken down these barriers.
It's not just enough to swing at the ball. You've got to loosen your girdle and really let the ball have it.
I'm just a ballplayer with one ambition, and that is to give all I've got to help my ball club win. I've never played any other way.
You can teach all the other stuff, you know. You can teach shooting the ball, you can teach having a good touch... passing and whatnot, but when you get out there on the field, it's just a mindset you need to go into the game with.
I'm just generally hugely frustrated, I'm a very, very frustrated man. I'm just a ball of pent-up frustration.
I started playing ball when I was a kid. My dad was a pro ball player and he passed on his knowledge to me.
Nolan Ryan is pitching much better now that he has his curve ball straightened out.
I love the feel of hitting the ball hard, the pleasure of a rally. It is these things that make tennis the delightful game that it is.
The only real happiness a ballplayer has is when he is playing a ball game and accomplishes something he didn't think he could do.
My son walked up to Nicole on the beach and I was throwing the ball for the dogs in the ocean. I was like, 'Max, you get the dogs. I'll talk to the hot blondes.'
I was the kind of reader in smudged pink harlequin glasses sitting on the cool, dusty floor of the Arrandale public library, standing at the edge of the playground, having broken a tooth in dodge ball, and lying under my covers with a flashlight.
As far as a guy like Ray Lewis is concerned, you know he's going to be around the ball all the time.
I view my career like a rubber-band ball in that every role is a new experience building toward something bigger.
The key step for an infielder is the first one, to the left or right, but before the ball is hit.
I would say I'm a goof ball, but not a comedian.
When I got to professional ball I used to play 150 games every year. It depends on how many games there was.
In sixth grade, my basketball team made it to the league championships. In double overtime, with three seconds left, I rebounded the ball and passed it - to the wrong team! They scored at the buzzer and we lost the game. To this day, I still have nightmares!
I thought I understood the story very well, because I've lived with it for so long. But movies change and take on a life of their own once they start to be made, and you have to keep your eye on the real ball, not the ball that's in your head.
Names that come to mind that I've learned from are Tom Brady - the way he gets the ball out and is so decisive. You can tell he is in total control out there. Another name is Aaron Rodgers, and how he's in total command. And also, Cam Newton, the way he has fun. I love that part of it.
