Some guys, first pitch of the at-bat gets called a strike - maybe it's a ball off or below their knees, and it gets called a strike - and then the next two pitches, they swing at balls in the dirt, and all of a sudden, they're yelling at the umpire about that first pitch. You just swung at two balls in the dirt, buddy.
Aaron Judge
If I keep taking my good swings, swing at the right pitches, good things will happen.
The big thing is, it's about learning which off-speed pitches to swing at. A lot of people say, 'Oh, this guy can't hit a curveball; this guy can't hit an off-speed pitch.' But it's about swinging at the right one. Swing at the hangers. Swing at the ones you can handle.
Pitches are like pages of a book; they're so important. The chess game; how I set you up early, and how I'll do it differently later.
Al Leiter
Announcers don't do enough of the cat-and-mouse strategy and all the work that goes into it. You watch a broadcast and guys get the pitches wrong.
Sometimes we're going to take marginal pitches on the edges and get called out on strike, but we want to get a pitch that we can drive and a pitch we can do damage on. I think when you do that, you don't necessarily chase as much out of the zone.
Alex Bregman
I kind of realized that when I take more pitches I put better swings on them.
If you get a veteran guy that's getting marginal pitches, you know you're in for a tough night and a battle.
It's tougher when you're established. Before, I'd see 13, 14, 15 pitches that I could drive in a game. Now, I see one, two or three, so I have to be better.
Alex Rodriguez
I was 10 when I realised I couldn't stand football. I'd tried, obviously, before this - no one wants to give in to social pariah-hood without a fight. I had stood frozen on pitches, done some running about and shouted a lot, as though I cared.
Andrew O'Hagan
I will say that I wasn't susceptible to Tony Robbins-like pitches, even as a younger man.
Andy Kindler
I guess my earliest football memories are of playing in the street and also the little pitches at school. I joined the local football team in my village when I was small, but we would play only once or twice a week. I honed my skills just by playing for fun with friends after school.
Arjen Robben
Things happen on football pitches. Once the game is finished, you don't need to talk afterwards. That's just how it is.
Ashley Young
In the minor leagues, previous to 2008, I took a lot of pitches. I prided myself on on-base percentage. I made sure that I made the pitcher work.
Ben Zobrist
You see certain guys enough, and you recognize pitches and stuff. Some guys you see better than others.
Billy Butler
Pitchers are going to break. You can limit their pitches and limit their innings, and they're still going to blow out. Pitching is hard on the arm.
Bruce Sutter
The three most important pitches I threw in my life were all fastballs.
My first year in the big leagues, I made $17,000. It was easy to go out and get another $17,000 relief pitcher. I never worried about innings or pitches. I just pitched.
I've written about 15 screenplays and they all sold - they were all sold on pitches.
Bruce Vilanch
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.
Chili Davis
You fool around with different pitches playing catch, but it's not the same when you've got to face some guy with a bat in his hand.
There are certain things I can't do, certain pitches I can't hit. You stay away from them. You try to wait for pitches you can hit. The bat speed isn't what it used to be. You make up for it by using your head, working counts, getting ahead in counts and getting pitches to hit and hitting them hard.
My secondary schooling was at Marlborough College, Wiltshire, so I'm fond of that part of the world. It's quintessentially English, with village greens, pubs and cricket pitches, and resonates strongly with me.
A writer can spend a decade working obsessively on a novel, but in the commerce of publishing, many of the most important decisions about any book will be made based on very short pitches - from literary agent to editor to sales rep to bookstore buyer to a potential reader standing in the bookstore, asking, 'What's it about?'
You can't necessarily tell when watching at home, but those pitches are usually an hour long each, and many are emotional, hilarious, and inspiring.
Baseball calls it a curve ball for a reason: you just don't know where some pitches will land. Your ace could get injured. Your golden glover could err. Your team could sit through a rain delay. Your manager could get ejected. Your bench must be broad and deep enough to overcome.
I started coaching in the Interregionale league in Catanzaro. There were pitches with no grass; at times, we had no water, no training equipment. I had to do it all myself.
All I really try to do is whatever hitter gets in there, I just try to get him out in as few pitches as possible.
When you're not hitting and they're making good pitches, it's hard.
I grew up in Hockley, Birmingham. It was an environment I'll never forget in terms of playing football on local pitches, kicking a ball around in the front garden and all over the house. It was a positive place to live, and somewhere, that gave me the right grounding for where I am today.
We charted individual pitches by hand, so I had that data from game to game, but from year to year, I didn't really have that data, because a lot of times it was discarded.
Every social network on Earth pitches me, and I say no to nearly every single one of them.
Later, I could take something off my slider and I could make my fastball sink, so I really had four pitches.
You aren't going to stick around long with just two pitches.
When I see some of the pitches which my father played on, I think that it must have been a different game.
Artificial pitches are just one more condition for us, like sun, wind or snow; we should be able to deal with such conditions.
When you don't have one that you throw for strikes - they are good hitters - they can cancel out one pitch and go to another. Now I have four pitches. If one's not working, I've got three others. It makes the game totally different.
I've got four pitches now. I don't have to use them all the time, but I've got them in my pocket now for when it's necessary.
The big thing will be having two pitches you can throw for strikes and developing a change-up, too.
If you can get an out on one pitch, take it. Let the strikeouts come on the outstanding pitches. Winning is the big thing. If you throw a lot of pitches, before you know it, your arm is gone.
There are only so many pitches in this old arm, and I don't believe in wasting them throwing to first base.
I started to play football when I was about 10; my father brought me to one school because there were more pitches where we could play.
I know I did not play an 11-a-side match until I was 12; even beyond that, we tended to play smaller-sized matches on smaller pitches.
Champions League matches are not always played on good pitches.
My love of running developed when I got older. At school it filled me with dread and the idea of running around the sports pitches struck me with a nameless fear.
The Varzea is kind of like street basketball in America or like the semi-professional football leagues in Europe. The pitches are all dirt, and you're playing against the marmanjo - the 'hard men.' It's known for being extremely physical.
I learned to bat and bowl on different pitches and knew when to go hard and when to back off. It was just something I learned.
In this country, since footballs made from pigs' bladders were whacked into goals without nets, we've played on full-size pitches. Whatever our age.
I've heard things said on football pitches that players clearly don't mean, whether it's racism or just an abusive comment in the heat of the moment.
There are not enough turning pitches in India, which is why we are not getting good spinners.
