You can always bring hustle and enthusiasm.  You may not always have your A game; but you can always bring those 2 things...

Previous Quotes

"Never chew gum at the plate. It makes your eyeballs bounce up and down." (Harmon Killebrew)

 

Take control of what you control. You can't control whether you walk away from a game with four hits. You can control how well you pulled for your teammates. You can give up your at-bat and bunt a guy into scoring position. You can run the bases intelligently. In short, you can control how good a teammate you are.  If you base how great a game you had on how good a teammate you were, I'll guarantee a couple things. One, you'll have a lot more fun. And two, the Baseball Gods will reward you with the best statistical season you ever had. Don't ask me how, the game was just designed that way. Remember, results are just a by-product of your approach to the game.  (Brent Mayne - 15 Year Major League Catcher)

 

The Physics of Baseball: The batter has about 0.4 seconds to gauge the path of a pitch, and the bat must be at the right place [within about 1 cm] at the right time [within 0.01 seconds] to make solid contact. The bat-ball collision lasts typically for 0.001 seconds, and the average force on the ball is of order 10,000 Newtons, corresponding to a mass of about 1000 kg [or a ton].

 

"Your 2 biggest opponents in baseball are frustration and boredom.  Right when you start to check out and lose your focus, the ball will be hit to you.  Mental toughness in baseball is the ability to focus for 2-3 hours in 5 second segments."  (University of Texas Coach Auggie Garrido - Overall Rcd: 1,668-755-8. Five NCAA National Championships)

 

"What makes me angry is when people don't care - not when they fail - everyone fails - or when people act like they don't care.  You have one opportunity to do something, and you never know if you're going to get that opportunity again." (Derek Jeter - 5 World Series Championships)

"In order to hit a baseball properly, a man has got to devote every ounce of his concentration to it.  Hit 'till your hands bleed." (Ted Williams - the last man to hit .400 - he hit .406 in 1941)

 

"I don't feel right unless I have a sport to play or at least a way to work up a sweat."  (Hank Aaron - 714 Major League Home Runs)

Being late either means it's not important to you or you can't be relied upon.

"Baseball is simple - it's catching and throwing.  Everybody wants to hit, but you can't play unless you can catch and throw.  Baseball is a game where if you don't beat yourself, you'll win an awful lot of games."  (Dennis Denning - University of St. Thomas Head Coach)

"Baseball is a game of adversity and failure.  You can't be successful unless you've learned how to consistently control yourself at a high level.  You can't get too high or too low.  You have to stay in the middle mentally."  (Eric Decker - University of Minnesota)

"I try to pitch to contact, and I have full confidence in my fielders."

 (Seth Rosin - MVHS Class of 2007)

"The dumber a pitcher is, the better. When he gets smart and begins to experiment with a lot of different pitches, he's in trouble. All I ever had was a fastball, a curve and a changeup and I did pretty good."

(Dizzy Dean)

"Throw what the batter doesn't like, can't hit, or doesn't expect."       (Charlie Ruud)

"Hitting is the most over-coached and undertrained facet of baseball.  There is too much theory and too little hard humdrum repetition, the blister-causing tedium that builds up muscle memory."  (Jim Lefevbre)

"The problem with being Comeback Player of the Year is it means you have to go somewhere before you can come back."  (Bert Blyleven)

From the movie A League of Their Own about the All-American Girls Profesional Baseball League (1943-1954):  "Why do you want to quit?" asked Tom Hanks (Manager).  The player replied, "It just got too hard."  Hanks responded, "It's the hard part that makes it worth it."

 

"If you set out to win individual awards, it gets too personal.  I just try to do one thing every day to help us win.  If it's making a pick in the dirt, if it's making a diving play, if it's driving in a run, taking a walk, whatever." (Justin Morneau)

 

"It goes to show you don't need that first-round draft pick on your team to win that national championship," left fielder Steve Susdorf said. "You need 25 guys. We were all committed to the team. No one was about himself."  (Fresno State - 2008 NCAA Champions)

 

"Character and work ethic in the classroom and on the field is very, very important to us here and ultimately these are the kids we are looking for.  If you have to constantly push a kid to work hard, then they most likely will not be a good fit in our system.  We are looking for low maintenance student/athletes who are responsible and take their improvement seriously."   (Source - College Recruiter Email to Coach Downey)

 

"The way I look at it, you're competing to be the starter every day in practice, to show the coaches that you're the one they want on the field."

(Adam Weber)

 

"When I'm at the plate, it's me, the ball and the pitcher.  Everything else is blocked out.  No matter what else is going on in my life, I can usually eliminate those thoughts when I'm concentrating at bat.  Like I'm tunneled in."  (Rod Carew)

 

Asked for his favorite memory, "I've got so many plays running through my mind.  The funny thing is, it's not only about the touchdowns and the big victories.  If I were to make a list, I would include the interceptions, the sacks, the really painful losses.  Those times when I've been down, when I've been kicked around, I hold on to those.  In a way those are the best times I've ever had, because that's when I've found out who I am.  And what I want to be." (Brett Favre)

 

"Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain cool and unruffled under all circumstances." (Thomas Jefferson)

 

"The greatest thing about Wes Walz is that it was never about him.  It was about performing for his teammates, being there for the guy next to him, and being more proud of what he left in that dressing room than what he carried around on himself." (Wes Walz teammate Brad Bombardir)

 

 "Champions don't beat themselves. If you want to win, do the ordinary things better than anyone else does, day in and day out.  We're not going to fool people or outscheme them.  We're just going to outplay them.  Champions are champions not because they do anything extraordinary, but because they do the ordinary things better than anyone else."  (Chuck Noll - Winner of 4 Super Bowls)

"I want to be remembered as a modest athlete, someone who wanted only what was best for her team." (Sammie Howard - 2007 MVHS Grad)

"Make mental mistakes, you're not going to win." (Torii Hunter)

"In baseball, my theory is to strive for consistency, not to worry about the numbers. If you dwell on statistics you get shortsighted, if you aim for consistency, the numbers will be there at the end."  (Tom Seaver - HOF 1992)

"You're going to have so many ups and downs.  If you worry about every individual play, if it's a success or a failure, you'll just never be able to recoup."  (Adam Weber - 2006 MVHS Grad)

"My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging."  (Hank Aaron)

"You don't save a pitcher for tomorrow.  Tomorrow it might rain."  (Leo Durocher)

"One time I snuck a ball on with me and when I went to winding up, I threw one of them balls to 1B and one to 2B. I was so smooth I picked off both runners and fanned the batter without that ump or the other team even knowing it."  (Satchel Paige)

"The stories about Satchel Paige are legendary and some of them are even true."   (Buck O'Neil)

 

"Cool Papa Bell was so fast he could get out of bed, turn out the lights across the room and be back in bed under the covers before the lights went out" (Josh Gibson)

"Once Cool Papa Bell hit a line drive right past my ear. I turned around and saw the ball hit him sliding into 2B." (Satchel Paige)

"If I need to help my team and play a different position for that game because somebody is hurt or they want to give a day off to somebody, I'll do it.  I'm a teammate guy, so whatever I can do to help my team to win, that's what I want to do.  This game is really crazy. Nobody can understand it, and there a lot of things that happen that you can't control.  There is no pressure. I just concentrate and do the best I can. I try to do my best every day and help the team win any way I can." (Albert Pujols)

"If you're like me, not naturally an extraordinary athlete, then the mental side of everything becomes more important."  (Carlos Delgado)

Michael Cuddyer said he changed his attitude after the tumultuous 2005 season.  "I was looking for a way out, a new beginning," said Cuddyer, thinking at the time a trade might jump start his career. "But going into last season, it wasn't about me anymore. It was about helping this team win. I didn't know my role, but I knew my role was going to be a good teammate."  Cuddyer repeatedly told reporters last season that all he cared about was being a "good teammate." That literally was the goal he set during the preceding off-season. He had grown weary of worrying about his own status in 2005, when he said he often got only two to three hours of sleep a night.  Cuddyer batted .284 with 24 homers and 109 runs batted in 2006 - all career highs.

"Don't confuse the loud with the strong.  Leadership is through example, not words."

"I get such a bang out of it, playing ball. You get out there and the pitcher throws and you're looking for that pill and suddenly there is nothing else in the ballpark, you and it, and sometimes when you're feeling right and there is a groove there and the bat just eases into it and meets that ball. When the bat meets that ball you can feel that ball just give and you know it is going to go a long way. Darn, if you don't feel like you're going to live forever..." (John Cusac as Buck Weaver in the Movie Eight Men Out - 1988)

"They give you a round bat, and they throw you a round ball. And they tell you to hit it square." (Willie Stargell)

"I go to the mound in the 1st inning planning to pitch a perfect game.  If they get a hit, then I am throwing a one-hitter.  If they get a walk, it's my last walk.  I deal with perfection to the point that it's logical to conceive it.  History is history, the future is perfect." (Orel Hershiser)

"During my 18 years, I came to bat almost 10,000 times.  I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times.  You figure a ballplayer will average about 500 at-bats a season.  That means I played about 7 years without ever hitting the ball."  (Mickey Mantle - 1970)

A pitcher once said of George Brett, "Pitch him inside, that way the line drives won't hit you..."

"The ballplayer who loses his head, who can't keep his cool, is worse than no ballplayer at all."  (Lou Gehrig)

"Throw strikes?  Piece of cake.  Home plate don't move."   (Satchel Paige)