Top 95 Fastball Quotes & Sayings - Page 2

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.

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.

That's when I'm at my best. When I can throw a fastball over in the count, just throw strikes both in and away, it just sets up all my stuff.

When you lose velocity off of your fastball, one thing that suffers is your off-speed pitches - the action on your off-speed pitches. Once you lose arm speed, it takes away rotation from your off-speed pitches. The rotation is what gives them the sharpness and the nastiness.

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.

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 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.

When you pinch-hit, you know you're getting their best guys, and usually it's a reliever and a guy that's got a really good slider or a really good fastball.

(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.

Cleaning up that lack of the definition between the two, and then leaning on the four-seam, having it become my primary fastball over my two-seam, it's just benefited me as a whole.

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.

Everybody here has the ability to throw a fastball down and away or throw a breaking ball in the dirt for a swing and a miss. But are we able to stay in that moment and understand what we're trying to accomplish and see it in our mind before we execute and then make the pitch?

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 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.

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.

Trying to sneak a fastball past Hank Aaron is like trying to sneak the sunrise past a rooster.

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.

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.

The last start of spring training, my (cut fastball) was okay. It just wasn't what I wanted it to be. I tried to work on making it cut more and do more. I think that set (the forearm) off ... trying to make it move a lot, cut a lot. I'm just going to back off and trust it a little bit more and not try and push that.

John Wetteland had a very good curveball. He threw it for a strike, too, in any count, any situation. But, he really didn't use it much. He didn't want to throw it. He wanted to throw fastball-slider.

Sometimes my arm wants to throw a hard fastball, but my brain doesn't want to throw it that hard.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

I'm not like a 90-mph fastball kind of guy, but I can hit 70 on radar gun. I hit 70 one time on a radar guy at one of those pitch-and-throw kind of things. I have a pretty good arm for somebody who's not a baseball player.

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.

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.

I want to throw a faster fastball. I want a sharper curve. I want to improve all my pitches.

I think that is one thing I've picked up: follow a routine, be consistent, and everything is going to fall in place. If you are scrambling around, and you are late for stuff, that adds extra stress, and you have to go out there and hit a 97 mph fastball.

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

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 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 30 feet of its flight and knew how it would move once it has crossed the plate.

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.