Bruce Sutter Quotations

I was planning a hunting trip next year if I didn't get in this year. I didn't need to be around the phone, I can tell you that.

It's not good or bad, but closers have changed things. I don't think you are going to win a World Series without one. Where would the Yankees be without Mariano Rivera?

I feel like a pioneer with the split-fingered fastball. I was the first one to really throw it pretty much 100 percent of the time. It was a pitch that I had to have. If I didn't have it, I wouldn't have been in the big leagues.

I was short with my fastball and breaking ball.

It's that way all the way down the line. I've got a boy coaching college ball and another son coaching high school. All the way down to summer leagues, all the way down to kids who are 14 years old. All those teams have a closer.

I have an older son, Josh, and growing up, he just didn't care that much for baseball. And that was fine. But Chaddie, he always wanted to go to the ballpark. He just kind of took to it right away.

I enjoy being out with the fans, I enjoy talking baseball, but to get up and tell my life story... I'm not comfortable doing that.

Young pitchers don't throw enough in the minor leagues, and when they get to the majors, they don't have the stamina; their arms haven't been built up.

That may have been true in the '50s. But if I'm playing against the Yankees and they say, 'You can take one guy off their team so he can't play against you,' well, then, it's going to be Mariano Rivera who won't play.

It was a call that you always hope for, but you never really expect it to happen. I didn't think it would affect me or hit me as hard as it did.