Batting Quotations

Grownups, as a rule, should always be ready to pay for their own meals - or else ready to graciously accept their date's insistence on paying. The point is, one doesn't sit there batting one's eyelashes, fully expecting someone else to claim the bill.

If I have a 100 percent batting average, you should fire me, because it means we haven't tried anything really noble.

God isn't really interested in our batting averages.

When I first started swinging a bat, I swung righty. So one time, my dad came home, and he wanted to see my batting stance. So I showed him. He says, 'You don't hit right-handed. You hit left-handed.' At that age I didn't even really think about it. Just like 'all right,' and I switched hands. He said I'd thank him later.

A Home Run Derby is fun. It's just like taking batting practice, and you just want to go deep. Guys do it every day. Yes, there's a little more pressure when they pull that cage back, but if you practice properly, it shouldn't affect the second half of your season at all.

The federal government does not trample in jackboots those with whom it does business. It wraps them in cotton batting and, when they express ingratitude, apologizes profusely.

When I was 12, I was taking batting practice with an aluminum bat at Tiger Stadium. I don't know where it landed exactly, but upper deck somewhere. Yeah, people were surprised.

If I can get a story about a player, I would give you a ship load of numbers, batting averages and all just for that one precious story. That's the kind of thing that I love to do.

Obviously, a lot of things play on your mind when you're batting. This might happen and this might not. The best thing you can do when you're batting is not to think too much, and wait for the next ball.

Maybe I'm delusional but I'm usually funny. It's not 100% but I have a pretty good batting average.

In the old days, you know, they didn't have batting cages. And in most ball parks, they only had one runway to the dugout.

We are progressing well. By the time of the World Cup, we will be ready in all departments -- bowling, batting order etc.

We are looking to include players who can bat, bowl and field and Hopes fits that bill perfectly. He gives us another all-round option, and can open the batting if required.

When we come into the season every position accept pitchers and catchers is open. We're going to have to see how the batting order shapes up.

What he brings to the stage in terms of bowling, batting and fielding is exciting. He's a young guy, got plenty of talent and we're taking the opportunity of including a younger guy to learn as times goes on.

We brought the (WBC) pitchers in early because we want to make sure they are farther along than normal so they can physically handle what is going to be expected of them. I'd expect them to start throwing batting practice (before the rest of the pitchers). Once we get them ahead (in conditioning), we don't want them to take a step back.

Three years with 200 hits and a batting title, and he's not satisfied.

We've well and truly done that now. We've got a really nice launching pad into tomorrow. With some good disciplined batting we can get a big lead,

We were below par here but there are still two big games to go. Our batting is a concern but we go to Johannesburg looking to win the series.

We want to see some more patience in the batting line-up,

We were in control in the first few days with our batting and that's how we wanted to stay, ... We had set ourselves up to try and have a range of options as the day wore on so that if bad weather did eventuate, we were still in control of what we wanted to do. We didn't get ourselves into that position.

We'll see what program the doctors want us to have him on. I'm under the assumption he'll be on the field taking grounders and taking batting practice. When he starts throwing, I don't know that yet. I think everything else is A-OK.

We are always a bat-first team, but the local guys said we could break through on the first morning and that days two and three would be best for batting. Well, we didn't make the breakthrough and batting certainly looked easy today.

We are hiding him a little bit. It's really not by design. We switched a few things with him in batting practice about a week ago. We moved him up in the box a little. It wasn't that he was struggling. He just couldn't get anything on the barrel.

We held them until the fourth, when they loaded the bases off a hit and two errors. We ended up shutting them down. We opened up the sixth-inning batting all the way around with eight hits and scoring 14 runs.

We set up our batting order around a couple of guys and that's two of our guys that set the table.

Whenever you look at a game I am always reminded of a Bill Lawry quote that you should always add two wickets on and then re-assess the game. If we were to do that then I would say that it's evenly poised on a pretty good batting wicket.

We were confident that our batting was clicking and we could chase. The goal was to win the series 4-1 and we are learning constantly about the way we are chasing targets and I think the confidence was the key.

When you consider the nine players in the batting order, this team is a little better than the 1993 team.

When we say it's time for batting practice, they say, 'Oh, let's go!' When it's time for fielding practice, they start moaning.

Let's let the pitchers concentrate on pitching for a while and then we'll get them their at-bats. Pitchers are getting plenty of batting practice, but we can't win if they don't get people out.

She's more of a batting coach than most of the coaches are. She picks out every little thing. She's just so intelligent.

Shuffling of batting order will depend on strategy and other conditions but the post-mortem of the Test series shows that we will have to play the key players in the positions suited to them.

Mired in a batting slump, Bonds sat in the locker room and complained about his uncharacteristic struggle to get his offense going. I can't put my finger on the problem, said Barry aloud. I'm struggling. Can't buy a hit. Bonds then looked up and noticed a chronically poor-hitting teammate nearby. Bonds turned to him and said something like - you must feel like this all the time.

My batting is up to being in the top six and my bowling is on the improve,

My batting at the moment is a lot better than it has been, both mentally and technically.

My dad is my everything - my coach, batting instructor, encouragement and motivation. When I go into a situation, I take him with me.

Neil's coming along just fine. It won't be long before he's taking batting practice and catching.

Obviously they like batting with each other. They're the sort of people who enjoy being out in the middle and the challenge,

Obviously my preference is to open the batting but I just hope I'm not seen by people as purely an opener. When I play overseas I rarely open the batting. I batted number four for Yorkshire for most of the season and, in one-day games, I often move into number three ... if the selectors can't find a place for me as an opener, that's fine, I'll take any opportunity in the order.

Obviously, Jacques gives us another bowling option, and he'll (also) give us a lot of stability somewhere in the batting order.

Right now I think it is. We have the potential to be a good run-scoring team, but we're not very disciplined at the plate right now. They do really good things in batting practice going against a fastball, but you also have to be able to hit that curveball in a game. I know we're going to hit the ball better.

I was such a dangerous hitter I even got intentional walks in batting practice.

I wish I could say I wanted to be batting like this at this point in the year, but I can't say that. It's nice. I'm hoping to keep it up.

I wish I could of had her batting for everybody.

If we could get the fans here to wear what they want while we're batting and then when they come up to bat, if everyone would put on a black shirt, it would really help us out in the field, ... The glare from the red and white people are wearing makes it hard to pick the ball up off the bat.

I have been training hard since the beginning of the spring because I wanted to show a lot of ability in short time. Although I don't have a lot of experience batting here, I have a good feeling toward Tokyo Dome.

I didn't miss any bullpen sessions. I just missed batting practice. You can throw all of the bullpens you want, and it's just not the same.

I didn't make the adjustment overnight. Obviously, you work out with a wood bat during batting practice in college and go out to summer leagues like the Cape Cod and the Jayhawk so you actually get 150-200 at-bats using wood. It was kind of a gradual thing for me.

I don't know what order I will be batting in the end. I would like to try a lot of different positions. That is something that will have to be proven in the camp, but in order to become the World Series champs once again I decided to come to camp.

I am happy with this team. They really are a great group of kids. They are a lot of fun to just be around and to coach. I am not sure what our team batting average is, but I know they are the type of guys that have one of the higher grade-point-averages.

I am the captain, but I am not batting for everyone in the side and I am not bowling for everyone,

Bryan pitched batting practice and he was probably hitting 90 mph.

Batting third could help him hit .300 for the first time. He's too good a hitter not to have done that.

Batting practice is next on his agenda. But he's swinging well and making good progress in the last 48 hours. He's close to playing in a game.

Batting fourth comes with some expectations. I'm a perfectionist, I expect perfection out of myself and when it doesn't happen, I get frustrated with it.

Batting for Vivian Richards is a matter of strokes, more strokes, and even more strokes.

Batting depth is very important in a game. Sometimes a few guys won't hit well at the top, but a few others in the middle or bottom will, and it really helps when that happens.

I have been batting well on the last two days of the tour. Getting out just 13 short of a ton is disappointing but it was need of the hour as the team needed quick runs to declare and put pressure on India.

I feel good, I was hitting the ball good in batting practice.

I feel pretty good overall. When I'm out there throwing batting practice, it's just what it is, batting practice. To work on my pitches and trying to get something out of it a little bit as far as some intensity.

I feel more comfortable batting second because I see more fastballs. That's the difference from batting eighth. You see a lot of breaking balls because of the pitcher (coming up).

I can't say enough about the middle of the batting order. (But) another kid that's come through the last couple games is Griffin.

Freddie has been in big-league camp before, but he was never much of a factor. But you have some guys who are late bloomers, and he's one of them. His name seems to pop up every day, whether it's about a play he made out on the field, or how he looked during batting practice.

I don't think our team batting average is all that good, but I would love to see what our average is with runners in scoring position. It comes down to hitting with confidence with the right frame of mind.

Fortunately Ashy and I managed to get one going but we just needed to be patient and keep building, waiting for the bad ball. Fortunately it's put us in a strong position after batting first at the SCG, which is what you need to do.

He would be in our meetings, then run out to take batting practice. Even if he couldn't go out on the (football) field, he would try to come see us and he would come in on his own time and study film.

He will take batting practice today, and we'll make an evaluation. We'll see how it feels.

He will be back. I would like to see him back out there in under three weeks. We'll try to figure out everything we can do to speed this up. Fortunately, it's a non-displaced fracture and it's fairly stable right now, so he'll be able to take some light batting practice, doing his throwing, some aerobic stuff on a bike and possible work out in a swimming pool. So when he's pain-free and the doctors clear him, he should be ready to play.

He takes great pride in it. He's always attentive to the game situation, knows when we're going to probably crank 'er up a little bit more than normal based on the situation. There's no dialogue; he's there before I ever get there. Kind of like you see guys in the Home Run Derby. They bring in their own batting practice pitcher. There's a select comfort you get from somebody.

He's contributing big-time to our winning, being on base, prolonging the inning, giving a shot to the guy batting behind him. It happens every year.

He hasn't been an All-American out. Flaherty hit a very important sacrifice fly the other day against (Tim) Wakefield. His batting average doesn't show it, but he's still able to do some things for us.

He has been playing club cricket at home and he has been batting and bowling, so he is fine.

He is doing the things that he did in Spring Training and during batting practice. Now he's taking it into the game. Has he gotten it completely down? No, but he has gotten it down to the point where he could be a tough out.

He had a great batting practice today. He hit a bunch of balls into the water.

He gets it. He gets situations. He gets who's batting ahead of him in the lineup and he gets who's batting behind him. To have a winning-caliber team, you need players like that.

He gave me a stack of batting gloves. He said, 'Mike, if you need anything, you let me know.' I would see him other times, and he would tell me he heard I was playing well. He was always real cool. It's a shame he got a bad rap.

He might win a batting title one day. I'll go on record as predicting that.

We can hit and throw. Our pitchers throw live batting practice in a batting cage. There's not a whole lot we can do.

We can do it four times in a row. We have a formidable team... our batting is quite potent and our spin bowlers have been doing the trick for us all season.

Here I am the best batting average in the music industry and I'm a bye word in the industry. I really am. Compared to Rod Stewart, I mean, Rod Stewart big deal. I mean, I know he's good and everything, but I played a show two years ago and I had to star under Eddie Money.

Her rarely striking out was not genetics. I think it was the psychology I tried to implant in her when she was young. We would go to the batting cage and I would put it on 110 pitches. I told her as long as you at least foul the ball off there is no way you are going to strike out and that all you have to do is just nick the ball.

Going into his final season we are going to count on him on the mound, in the outfield and at bat. There is no designated hitter for Alan. His batting and pitching are a plus, and even if he is playing in the outfield there is not a weak link.

He said, ?I'd love to take batting practice,' and I said, ?I'm sure we can squeeze you in. I don't think it's going to be a problem.

He's a little taller (in his batting stance), a little more aggressive to the ball. He's not collapsing on his backside. His swing's more level.

He's just doing the things that we thought he had to do. He's doing the things he did in spring training and he's done in batting practice. Now he's taking it to the game. Has he got it completely down? No. But he's certainly got it down to the extent that he's a tough out.

He's been really unselfish for us. He's been outstanding for us this season. He's got a great on base percentage, and he started out the season batting third for us. But we thought he'd be most effective at the top of the order.

His stuff is so good. We face him in live batting practice and he tells you what's coming. Not many pitchers do that. He definitely has closer's stuff.

He was more concerned with his batting average than we were. We liked the plate discipline he showed (59 walks) and the power numbers. For a 20-year-old in that league, the walks and power numbers are great predictors for good things.

Guys tell me they sleep on the road a lot easier and better than they do at home, ... At home, you end up waking at 7:00 in the morning because you're used to getting up early. On the road, you're not worried about sleeping in and missing batting practice. You're always conscious here of oversleeping. You don't want to wake up in a panic, especially if it's cloudy or dark outside. If it gets sunny early, you're jumping out of bed and it could be 6 o'clock.

I was in there three or four times every day during the week. I went before class and after class and before practice and then after batting practice. I think I spent more time in the training room than I did in class this week.

Jacques is training again, bowling and fielding. It's just batting that's still a problem and he's not hitting any balls yet. Hopefully he can start doing that by the end of the week.

John has a knack for making things happen batting where he does.

I think it's because they got away from the fundamentals of throwing. I threw long toss like every other day. And I constantly worked on my throwing during batting practice and worked on catching ground balls and getting in position to throw.

I thought going into this year that I would be a role player. I didn't think I would be hitting as well as I am, but I've grown comfortable and it's been working out well. Batting third makes you a big part of the lineup and it's nice to be an important part of the team.

I thought we did an awesome job batting with two strikes. We put the ball in play.

I think batting ninth really gives me a chance to see everything that the pitches has. I've probably seen him throw all his pitches to the first eight hitters.

I think we came into this game with a lot of momentum. Guys were up even in batting practice. We had a good attitude coming into the game and it carried over.

I think tonight we just did not play very smart at all. We were in a good position from our batting perspective but there were some things with our bowling as well, they were all combined. It was not any one person's fault or any one person's non-performance, it was a combination of a number of things.

It is not easy batting out there. Getting any total is going to be a struggle.