I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.
When they start the game, they don't yell, "Work ball." They say, "Play ball."
Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind.
It's a round ball and a round bat, and you got to hit it square.
I played seven years without ever hitting the ball.
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.
Football is a simple game based on the giving and taking of passes, of controlling the ball and of making yourself available to receive a pass. It is terribly simple.
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 7 years without ever hitting the ball.
Well, boys, it's a round ball and a round bat and you got to hit the ball square.
I don't want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it.
Don't tell me about the world. Not today. It's springtime and they're knocking baseball around fields where the grass is damp and green in the morning and the kids are trying to hit the curve ball.
You're gonna lose some ball games and you're gonna win some ball games and that's about it.
Watching a ball game is one of the sweetest pleasures in the world.
It's important for the young players to practice other ball games as well, basketball or table tennis. On the tennis court, you can improve your eye through a kind of overexertion.
Most young people haven't used their storytelling skills since they were 8 or 9 or 10 and wanted to persuade Mom and Dad to take them to the ball game.
Most ball games are lost, not won.
Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.
And of course in America you've got American football and baseball and all those other ball games, soccer has become a little niche that the women have kind of filled.
I was not able to work up much enthusiasm over the ball game, and in the midst of it I was handed a note informing me of the sudden death of Senator Dwight morrow. He had proved a great pillar of strength in the senate and his death was a great loss to the country and to me. I left the ballpark with the chant of the crowd ringing in my ears, 'We Want Beer!'
Yelling doesn't win ball games. It doesn't put any points on the scoreboard. And I don't think words win ball games all the time. Players do. Preparation does.
I cannot consider fighting in competitive Manly Fun any more than I can consider pitting my running, swimming or climbing body against other bodies. Nothing, then, or now, arouses me or will ever arouse me from a perfect disinterest in ball games.
I have always felt that although someone may defeat me, and I strike out in a ball game, the pitcher on the particular day was the best player. But I know when I see him again, I'm going to be ready for his curve ball. Failure is a part of success.
Our age has become so mechanical that this has also affected our recreation. People have gotten used to sitting down and watching a movie, a ball game, a television set. It may be good once in a while, but it certainly is not good all the time. Our own faculties, our imagination, our memory, the ability to do things with our mind and our hands-they need to be exercised. If we become too passive, we get dissatisfied.
When I am working it is up early and coffee and 15 hours of being on the set. When I am not working, it is up late and coffee, golf or softball and hopefully a ball game on the television.
Though I like the various forms of football in the world, I don't think they begin to compare with these two great Anglo-Saxon ball games for sophisticated elegance and symbolism. Baseball and cricket are beautiful and highly stylized medieval war substitutes, chess made flesh, a mixture of proud chivalry and base - in both senses - greed. With football we are back to the monotonous clashing armor of the brontosaurus.
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