The reason I think I'm a good pitcher is I locate my fastball and I change speeds. Period. That's what you do to pitch. That's what pitchers have to do to win games.
What's important is to get into the pitcher's head: to know what he's made of.
I've done literally everything there is to do on a baseball field as a pitcher.
No one intuitively understands quantum mechanics because all of our experience involves a world of classical phenomena where, for example, a baseball thrown from pitcher to catcher seems to take just one path, the one described by Newton's laws of motion. Yet at a microscopic level, the universe behaves quite differently.
Generally in the Little League you're up against a good pitcher who throws like hell. What does the coach say? Get a walk. Isn't that beautiful way to learn to hit? For four years you stand up there looking for a walk.
After I hit a home run I had a habit of running the bases with my head down. I figured the pitcher already felt bad enough without me showing him up rounding the bases.
I played Little League. I was a 'pitcher.' But we had a pitching machine, so I was just basically an 'in-infield' shortstop because all I got to do was field bloopers six feet from the plate. I couldn't hit, so that was pretty much my entire job.
Preparation is very important. The pitcher is going to do his job and prepare for you, so you as a hitter must do the same. I always watch videotape of pitchers before the game and even sometimes during.
I think that's why I like baseball. There's something great about it - you're young, the pitcher's young and he's got this great arm, and he doesn't really realize anything about strategy.
A pitcher will never be a big winner until he hates hitters.
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.
During my time, there might have been one pitcher or two that were top pitchers on a team. Teams that won maybe had three, but today they have a lot of depth. They have a lot of long relievers, short relievers, and the strategy is different.
The oldest pitcher acquires confidence in his ballclub - he doesn't try to do it all himself.
I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.
Guessing what the pitcher is going to throw is 80% of being a successful hitter. The other 20% is just execution.
The pitcher setting up the batter. It's chess, and you play with it.
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.
Every pitcher can beat you, it doesn't matter how good you are.
A guy that throws what he intends to throw, that's the definition of a good pitcher.
When you have these big, strong power hitters who can hit the ball a country mile, and they're strong for a reason and able to do that, as a pitcher you have to keep up.
In baseball, I was a pitcher, which I hated because there was no action there.
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.
Usually during the regular season, if you're starting pitcher, you're kind of walking back and forth from the clubhouse to the dugout and not really paying attention to what's going on.
A pitcher's got to be good and he's got to be lucky to get a no hit game.
What is life, after all, but a challenge? And what better challenge can there be than the one between the pitcher and the hitter.
I was a pitcher, shortstop and outfielder, and the Yankees tried to sign me out of high school as a first-round draft pick in 1981. I turned them down to go to college.
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.'
It took me a while to figure that out and to realize what a gift that I had been given. And when I finally did, I dedicated myself to be the best pitcher I possibly could be, for as long as I possibly could be.
A pitcher is only as good as his legs.
Momentum? Momentum is the next day's starting pitcher.
Never let yourself get fooled by the same pitcher on the same pitch on the same day.
I'm a finesse pitcher without the finesse.
Every great batter works on the theory that the pitcher is more afraid of him than he is of the pitcher.
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.
Because I could throw so hard when I got to college, they made me a pitcher. If I had to it all over again, I would have stuck to playing in the outfield. I loved running. I can catch everything in the outfield. I could throw people out from the fence.
You better be looking for another pitcher.
