Tracy Smith Quotations

We're going to primarily rest our starting pitchers and give some guys a chance who haven't had a lot of opportunities to stake a claim for some more innings out of the bullpen. I anticipate Butler will be taking the same approach.

We're hoping that this will help with communication with staff, students and very much so with the parents.

We're battling, we're just not getting over the hump. We just need to get that big hit or make that big play.

One thing that we do more now than we used to is to call each other every day. Every once in a while, someone will have a meltdown, and we'll have to console them. Since Feb. 3, it's been devastating, but we try to keep pressing forward. Sometimes I'm in the grocery store and I see people that look like Ali, with their stature and their build, and I follow them into the store to see if it's her.

If we don't take care of the baseball, we're a long way away (from where we need to be).

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I think the most amazing thing was that Ryan has done so tremendously well academically. Most people wouldn't be able to do that. What he has done has been flat-out remarkable.

Our preparation and focus is to get ready for the Big Ten. Our record is 0-0 in the conference and that's our mentality right now.

Our opponent really is ourselves. We need to take care of our game and our own business and focus on playing hard and playing well. If we do that, the wins will take care of themselves.

I was hoping for just a note or a phone call. Once Scott found out, this is just the type of guy he is, he just asked, 'Would he mind if I came down and spent the afternoon with him?' I didn't ask Scott for that, he just volunteered.

It created an atmosphere and got things going.

It couldn't have started any worse. It was our first time out and guys were trying too hard. We played tight.

We have to steal bases to be successful. We're not a big three-run homer team, and speed shows up to the ballpark everyday.

We really need to grasp the concept that extra bases matter, you can't be balking guys over and wild-pitching guys over. I don't care if you're playing Miami of Florida or the New York Yankees; you want to make it difficult (to score runs).

We know that you're adopting a baby girl from India.

We are not willing to go quietly. We are willing to break the silence.

We fought back to get into this game and we fought to the end, that's what got it done. Battle Creek fought to the end, too. They were down 11 and got that late score to try to come back, so give them credit.

To me there is no solace in one-run losses. Good teams win close games, and we have go to start winning them.

We can't use it as an excuse. We have to be tough enough to overcome that (the games are on the road).

Faith is the only thing we have right now.

We need to have better situational hitting. We could have lost all three of those games, so we need to use these mid-week games as prep and confidence builders for this weekend.

We want to go down to Charlotte and win, make no mistake about it. We expect to win three games, but at the same time we want to learn about ourselves as a team. But ultimately, it's all about winning.

I've been telling our guys all along that our season starts this weekend when Big Ten play begins.

Things took a turn on the field and from that point is when we started to get going.

The schedule is something we wanted to address. We think with the addition of Miami (Fla.) and some other changes we made to our mid-week opponents, we have taken steps in the right direction. We will always try and play the best teams in the nation during the non-conference portion of our schedule to better prepare us for Big Ten play and beyond.

It would be nice to get a rhythm and a groove going, but mother nature is going to do what mother nature is going to do. It's just something you have to accept this time of year.

The students really enjoyed the response from the adult day care center. I think that's when it really hit us that these little things really are affecting other people.

Our defense didn't give up enough points to beat us. If you can hold a team to 35 points, you've done a great job defensively.

Of course we want to beat in-state teams, but we try to de-emphasize the opponent, because the real opponent is us. I do caution the guys that the other in-state schools will be gunning for us because of who we are.

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A lot of teams would kill to pound out 13 hits like we did tonight. It's a shame it went to waste because we can't catch the ball.

There's always an element of surprise associated with it.

It was a well-played ball game; it came down to them getting a key hit. We didn't get the key hit and didn't make the plays. I'm proud of Clint, he kept us in there and gave us a chance to win.

It's a great first step, and it can only get better. It's a way to spark doing nice things for others within these kids. It's increasing the awareness of being kind and putting forth an extra effort.

It's all about confidence in ourselves and being confident in who we are as a team. If we can accomplish that, I think we'll be fine this weekend and this season.

That is a problem that all toll roads in this country share.

I wanted to make it really special on Valentine's day, so I tied my boyfriend up. And for three solid hours I watched whatever I wanted on TV.

It's real depressing knowing your loved one's out there. Nobody knows anything, nobody saw anything, no information, no leads.

I don't want to say that it's just another game, because the team is excited and I'm excited as well. But our focus is to do whatever is necessary to get ready for the Big Ten season.

He's not Superman, so we're going to treat him like any other guy. Hopefully we can do a good job of keeping him off the bases. When he gets on there, he makes it happen.

He reached to tag him with the ball and he was a foot away from the guy. But umpires don't win and lose the game. If we do what we're supposed to do, we're not in that situation.