Fastballs Quotes

The final release point for the fastball is the tips of your fingers.

Trying to sneak a fastball by Ted Williams was like trying to sneak a sunbeam by a rooster in the morning.

Once (Stan) Musial timed your fastball, your infielders were in jeopardy.

The three most important pitches I threw in my life were all fastballs.

I have to go with the approach I had in Triple-A. I need to take a lot of those fastballs I am seeing to left field. Also must gear up for the changeup and take them up the middle.

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.

A baseball swing is a very finely tuned instrument. It is repetition, and more repetition, then a little more after that.

You've got to be ready for the fastball.

It (the slider) just rolls off of your index finger and begins it's spin which will take it down and across the plate (hopefully). Just remember not to twist your elbow or wrist. It should be thrown, with the wrist and grip set, just like your fastball, slightly off center - with the same velocity and intensity.

The thing about throwing a fastball is, you want it to be easy, you want it to be effortless.

I will send a fastball into the cyber hole.

My changeup looks like a fastball, but one goes straight and the other goes away from the righthanded hitter. Sometimes it cuts by itself, and I don't know where it's going.

I consciously memorized the speed at which every pitcher in the league threw his fastball, curve, and slider; then, I'd pick up the speed of the ball in the first thirty feet of its flight and knew how it would move once it had crossed the plate.

I've got a fastball, change-up, forkball, curve, slider, knuckle-slider, knuckle-curve, I had about seven pitches I could have used at any time.

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.

I'm a power guy. Good fastball. A knuckle curve, which I can throw for strikes. A changeup which sinks down and away from lefties and I can also throw for strikes.

I studied one term of law and then came to realize I had a little better fastball and curve than I did a vocabulary.

I throw my curveball like Clayton Kershaw and my fastball like Mo'ne Davis.

I threw a lot more curveballs in college and the minor leagues. Up here, they're looking for that pitch. A curveball is more recognizable out of the hand than a fastball or changeup. They're taking them or hitting the mistakes I make with them. I don't want it to be so recognizable. I'll have to work with that because that was my pitch.

I never knew how to throw a fastball, never learned how to throw a curveball, a slider, split-finger, whatever they're throwing nowadays. I was a one-pitch pitcher.

Everybody wants to know, 'How do you throw a curveball, how do you throw a slider, how do you throw this and that,' when they can't even locate a fastball. Learn how to control your fastball and then once you've got that, move on to other things.

John Wetteland had a very good curveball. He threw it for a strike, too, in any count, any situation. But, he really didnt use it much. He didnt want to throw it. He wanted to throw fastball-slider.

Death ain't nothing but a fastball on the outside corner.

You must not be afraid of small bits of silence. To use it well is the height of confidence and skill for a comedian. It increases the tension in a good way and adds contrast like a curveball complements the fastball of a good pitcher.

I lost the good stuff on my fastball. I had to come up with something to keep me in the league. The knuckler rescued me then.

My dad played for a coal-mining team in eastern Ohio; he was a very good pitcher. If he hadn't hurt his arm, he probably would have got a shot somewhere. He hurt his arm one spring, didn't warm up good enough, couldn't throw a fastball anymore. Another coal miner taught him how to throw the knuckleball.

It's not fear of striking out that makes me reluctant to step up to the plate. It's the fear of getting hit in the head by a 90 mph fastball, the pitcher coming off of the mound to stomp me with her cleats while I am down, the rest of the opposing team rushing out of the dugout hurling insults as they kick me and spit on me, while all along the crowd in the stands is cheering them on and laughing at my failure. So, no, it's not the fear of striking out that keeps me from stepping up to the plate.

I looked for the same pitch my whole career, a breaking ball. All of the time. I never worried about the fastball. They couldn't throw it past me, none of them.

Pitching is what you have best on the day you work, and if you cant get your fastball over the plate, then maybe you can win with your curve.

But the Twins opened the fifth with their second and third hits, and Beltre helped Hernandez by taking his bullet throw for a force at third on a bunt try. I felt it, ... My only worry was that he didn't throw me a sinker. He threw hard, but a good fastball.

I know who's the best pitcher I ever see and it's old Satchel Paige, that big lanky colored boy. My fastball looks like a change of pace alongside that little pistol bullet ole Satchel (Paige) shoots up to the plate.

I love the slider. I'll throw it anytime. It helps the curve. The last five feet, it dives toward the left-handed hitter's box. It's a pitch that looks like a fastball coming in. It's a pitch I throw when I need a ground ball with a man on base.

When Bryan Price taught me how to throw a changeup, he made me see myself. All my life, I've been the equivalent of a fastball pitcher - trying to use blazing speed and brute force to wow the people around me.

The last batter to hit, blast shattered your hip, Smash any splitter or fastball-that'll be it.

Once the record was mine, I had to use it like a Louisville Slugger. I believed, and still do, that there was a reason why I was chosen to break the record. I feel it's my task to carry on where Jackie Robinson left off, and I only know of one way to go about it. It's the only way I've ever had of dealing with things like fastballs and bigotry -- keep swinging at them.

Greg Maddux is probably the best pitcher in all of baseball along with Roger Clemens. He's much more intelligent than I am because he doesn't have a 95 or 98 mph fastball. I would tell any pitcher who wants to be successful to watch him, because he's the true definition of a pitcher.

I try to do two things: locate my fastball and change speeds. That's it. I try to keep as simple as possible. I just throw my fastball (to) both sides of the plate and change speed every now and then. There is no special food or anything like that, I just try to make quality pitches and try to be prepared each time I go out there.

I had to will my way through that game. Sometimes, it takes more than talent or more than a 95-mile-an-hour fastball. You have to will it.

It's no fun throwing fastballs to guys who can't hit them. The real challenge is getting them out on the stuff they can hit.

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

No baseball pitcher would be worth a darn without a catcher who could handle the hot fastball.

You have to hit the fastball to play in the big leagues.

You can't hit what you can't see; I float like a butterfly and sting like a bee!

Losing is the bane and bugbear of every professional athlete's existence, but in baseball the monster seems to hang closer than in other sports, its chilly claws and foul breath palpable around the neck hairs of the infielder bending for his crosshand scoop or the reliever slipping his first two fingers off-center on the ball seams before delivering his two-and-two cut fastball.

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.

Back in the day when I played, a pitcher had 3 pitches: a fastball, a curveball, a slider, a changeup and a good sinker pitch.

(Dwight Gooden) his fastball crackling , his curveball dropping as suddenly as a duck shot in the air, has begun his charge for a third straight award-winning season.

My major league debut came at old Busch Stadium on Grand Avenue in St. Louis, against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The first pitch I threw was to third baseman Bob Bailey. It was a fastball, low and away. He ripped it for a home run down the left field line. I said, 'Damn, that was a pretty good pitch.

I'm not like a 90-mph fastball kind of guy, but I can hit 70 on radar gun.

I'm not going out and hitting a 95-mph fastball where I can't see the stitches. I'm not on a professional football team looking to tackle a fullback who is built like solid wood. I'm a thinking person, and I've been blessed with the ability to see some things and talk about them in a way that registers in a humorous and funny way.