How to hit home runs: I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball... The harder you grip the bat, the more you can swing it through the ball, and the farther the ball will go. I swing big, with everything I've got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can.
I was away from the game for a few years, and it feels good to be back. I'm bowling quite well and also getting the ball to reverse swing. During the time off, I worked a lot on getting the ball to reverse swing; now it's working well for me.
The day I left baseball, I became smart. When I was in baseball, I played for the love of the game. I'd sign any contract they gave me. But then I stopped playing and began doing interviews with the players at the ball park. I began to see the light.
I had a baseball swing my whole life. When I was growing up, everyone had a different, very specific softball swing that was very short. And I had a big stride and I had, you know, a baseball swing, and people did not like it.
Baseball is caring. Player and fan alike must care, or there is no game. If there's no game, there's no pennant race and no World Series. And for all any of us know there might soon be no nation at all. It is good to care - in any dimension. More Americans put their caring into baseball than into anything else I can think of - and most put at least a little of it there. Baseball can be trusted, as great art can, and bad art can't.
Once I found my swing, I feel like if I put a good swing on it, I feel like it's got a good chance to go wherever - left, right, center - it doesn't matter. But I'm not just out here going to swing for home runs of anything. I'm just trying to put a good swing on the baseball.
I miss playing baseball. Just being able to swing the bat, or run, or dive for a ball, or slide into second. If I could even do that in a softball league, I would never miss anything about baseball. I don't miss the crowds or the travel or even being in the big leagues. I just miss being able to take batting practice and being able to swing as hard as I can. That's all I miss.
When I am playing baseball, I give it all that I have on the ball field. When the ball game is over, I certainly don't take it home. My little girl who is sitting out there wouldn't know the difference between a third strike and a foul ball. We don't talk about baseball at home.
I don't like comparisons with football. Baseball is an entirely different game. You can watch a tight, well-played football game,but it isn't exciting if half the stadium is empty. The violence on the field must bounce off a lot of people. But you can go to a ball park on a quiet Tuesday afternoon with only a few thousand people in the place and thoroughly enjoy a one-sided game. Baseball has an aesthetic, intellectual appeal found in no other team sport.
We don't even think about it out there. We just focus on doing our job. The ball is the same baseball, the game is the same game. We're going to just keep trying to do our jobs.
I try to think shorter swing with two strikes. That's how I was raised and taught the game of baseball.
How to hit home runs: I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball.
We're not going to do anything different for this game since we're not treating this game any different than another game. Every game is a championship game for us, so we'll treat this one, the last one and the next one exactly the same. And that goes for our practices leading up to it as well.
I love baseball, I really do. I always told my Dad, I'm not gonna make it working... I like to play ball too much. Which I did. I played hard. You gotta work at this game. You really do. And its fun doing it if you do it the right way.
When it comes to hitting solid drives, the secret is to swing within yourself. I know that sounds like a cliche, but it's true. If you swing at 100 miles per hour and hit it on the toe, you won't hit the ball as far as you would with an 80-mph swing that catches the ball in the center of the clubface.
Now, on the other hand, if we booted all the men out of corporate America, and we had all women there, quite honestly I think they'd be just as corrupt as what we have right now. I think it's best to have diversity and different points of view.