A Quote by Satchel Paige

You gotta keep the ball off the fat part of the bat. — © Satchel Paige
You gotta keep the ball off the fat part of the bat.
When the ball is over the middle of the plate, the batter is hitting it with the sweet part of the bat. When it's inside, he's hitting it with the part of the bat from the handle to the trademark. When it's outside, he's hitting it with the end of the bat. You've got to keep the ball away from the sweet part of the bat. To do that, the pitcher has to move the hitter off the plate.
If a pitcher goes up there and he's throwing a ball and it's a breaking ball down and away or a fastball up and in, a perfect pitcher's pitch, and you're able to just foul it off and stay alive in the at-bat, just keep grinding, keep working through the at-bat and hoping for that mistake that he's going to make. And if he doesn't, then you walk.
In tennis ball cricket, even it's hit from the toe of the bat, the ball still travels a lot, but in normal cricket, it has to be the middle part of the bat, so it requires a lot of work.
I am an arm hitter. When you snap the bat with your wrists just as you meet the ball, you give the bat tremendous speed for a few inches of its course. The speed with which the bat meets the ball is the thing that counts.
The phrase 'off with the crack of the bat', while romantic, is really meaningless, since the outfielder should be in motion long before he hears the sound of the ball meeting the bat.
You can't see the bat hit the ball if you're generating any bat speed. If you're just laying the bat through the strike zone, sure, maybe.
I try to keep the ball up to the bat, and I usually get the ball to outswing, so I get wickets like that.
When you are playing the longer version, there are times when you don't have to get bat on ball on a regular basis but maybe a good leave outside the off stump can play its part in you surviving and the time that you would like to spend on the crease.
No one can ever see the ball hit the bat because it's physically impossible to focus your eyes that way. However, when I hit the ball especially hard, I could smell the leather start to burn as it struck the wooden bat.
You might pitch a ball on the off stump and think you have bowled a good ball and he walks across and hits it for two behind midwicket. His bat looks so heavy but he just waves it around like it's a toothpick.
My pitching philosophy is simple - keep the ball way from the bat.
If you can grab a ball and throw it, you can grab a ball and throw it. I don't care how tall you are, either. I'm not gonna see over a 6-foot-7 left tackle. You've gotta find lanes; you've gotta know where your guys are. It's not about the height: if you can win ball games, you can win 'em.
Bat doesn't hit ball, bat meets it.
I remember on the 'Midnight Special' seeing a video with Meat Loaf. I think it was the 'Bat Out Of Hell' video. It was like this raging huge fat guy, and he's really sexual, and he's really sweaty, and it's really kind of sexy. Like, a fat guy can get the chick. I still am a big fan of 'Bat Out Of Hell.'
When you retire, you don't get fat and old. C'mon: it's like a shark. Sharks never stop swimming; that's when they die. You gotta keep moving.
I learned to hit with a broomstick and a ball of tape and I could always get that bat on the ball.
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