A Quote by Ozzie Smith

As I was in the air, the ball took a bad hop and caromed behind me, but I was able to catch it with my bare hand. I hit the ground, bounced back up, and threw Burroughs out at first.
If someone's going to throw me in, I'm not gong to try and hit a ground ball to third, you know? I'm going to try and hit it in the air. If someone's going to throw me away, I'm not going to try and hit a ground ball to second, I'm going to drive it to right-center.
I usually stick out my hand and hope he puts the ball in it. Except the one time I went out to take Early Wynn out. I stuck out my hand and he hit me right in the stomach with the ball.
I have the speed. People said, 'Just hit the ball on the ground, slap the ball, just get on base.' But I wanted to be able to hit home runs. I wanted to be able to bunt, steal bases, play defense.
I've broken my hand, I threw my back out once, and then I've had some pretty bad cuts, but that's been about it. I've been able to avoid most of the really, really bad injuries and career-ending injuries.
One of your best tools is being able to catch the football. But I think you can throw all that out the window when the ball is in the air.
In baseball, you can do something poorly and still get credit. A pitcher could throw a bad ball, the batter hit a screaming line drive, and an outfielder make a fantastic diving catch. Yet, when you look at historical databases, 80% of the time when a ball is struck with that trajectory and velocity, it is a hit.
I don't want a new ball when I am bowling in the subcontinent. I want an old ball that can't get hit out of the ground. I want a ball that when I bowl doesn't have true bounce, so that the batsman can't hit it.
In 2004 in England, there was one catch that was very special to me. I was bowling in a league match, and the batsman hit the ball over my head. I had to run back to between mid-off and mid-on to take the catch, and I did.
If you hit a routine fly ball in the big leagues, you're out every time. If you hit a ground ball, you're probably out a lot of the time as well. But there's a happy medium in there, a way to swing where your misses can still lead to successes.
Byrd has always been that kind of pitcher, trying to trick you, keep the ball low, in and out. He threw a lot of strikes, worked it inside and out, threw breaking balls for strikes behind in the count.
During the air war of 1944, a four-man combat crew on a B-17 bomber took a vow to never abandon one another no matter how desperate the situation. The aircraft was hit by flak during a mission and went into a terminal dive, and the pilot ordered everyone to bail out. The top turret gunner obeyed the order, but the ball turret gunner discovered that a piece of flak had jammed his turret and he could not get out. The other three men in his pact could have bailed out with the parachutes, but they stayed with him until the plan hit the ground and exploded. They all died.
I dribbled by the hour with my left hand when I was young. I didn't have full control, but I got so I could move the ball back and forth from one hand to the other without breaking the cadence of my dribble. I wasn't dribbling behind my back or setting up any trick stuff, but I was laying the groundwork for it.
I don't know how much things have changed. You still need to be able to run the ball, pick up blitzes and catch the ball out of the backfield. Perhaps you need a running back to do a little bit more or be more versatile today but that is a good thing. People say we get hurt and don't last as long, but it's still an important position and you need everyone in the backfield to be able to contribute.
Everything we play when we are growing up, is team related. In this game (of golf) you can find all the answers yourself. You don't need to throw the ball in the air and play catch with yourself. You get a bucket of balls and go out there with your clubs, and you hit and learn and you get better. And there's no top.
Down at Bournemouth, I kicked a tray of cups up into air, and one hit Luther Blissett on the head. He flicked it on, and it went all over my suit hanging behind. Another time, at West Ham, I also threw a plate of sandwiches at Don Hutchison. He's sitting there, still arguing with me, with cheese and tomato running down his face.
When I faced the likes of Shoaib Akhtar and Brett Lee for the first time, I had a little bit of fear in my mind. My thoughts were, 'Would I be able to face them? Would I be able to play them? Would I be able to hit boundaries?' There were so many questions and fear, also, that if the ball didn't hit my bat, it might hit me on the body.
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