Inspiring Baseball Pitching Quotes: Wisdom from the Mound

"I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it."

- Sandy Koufax

"The best pitchers have a short-term memory and a bulletproof confidence."

- Greg Maddux

"If you’re not practicing, somebody else is, somewhere, and he’ll be ready to take your job."

- Brooks Robinson

"The reason I think I’m a good pitcher is I locate my fastball and I change speeds. Period. That's what you do to pitch. That’s what pitchers have to do to win games."

- Greg Maddux

"You may not think you’re going to make it. You may want to quit. But if you keep your eye on the ball, you can accomplish anything."

- Hank Aaron

"Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way."

- Satchel Paige

"Baseball is a game of failure. It's about how you respond to it that matters."

- Alex Rodriguez

"Nobody wanted me. Scouts told me to go to school, to forget baseball. Coaches said, ‘You’re never going to make it.’ I appreciated their honesty because I think when someone tells you something you may not like, you have to use that as fuel for motivation."

- Mike Piazza

"Just take the ball and throw it where you want to. Throw strikes. Home plate don’t move."

- Satchel Paige

"If you’re not practicing, somebody else is, somewhere, and he’ll be ready to take your job. I want people to expect more from me because I expect more. If you don’t set goals high, you’re not trying."

- Todd Helton

"Mental attitude and concentration are the keys to pitching."

- Ferguson Jenkins

"Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game."

- Babe Ruth

"Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing."

- Javier Báez

"Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is."

- Bullet Bob Feller

"Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there."

- Bo Jackson

"There are so many people out there who will tell you that you can’t. What you’ve got to do is turn about and say ‘Watch me’."

- Bryce Harper

"The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person’s determination"

- Tommy Lasorda

"There may be people that have more talent than you, but there is no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do."

- Derek Jeter

"What you lack in talent can be made up with desire, hustle, and giving 110 percent all the time."

- Don Zimmer

"You can’t let the failures get you down. Learn from them, stay positive, and never give up."

- Buster Posey

"A guy that throws what he intends to throw, that’s the definition of a good pitcher."

- Sandy Koufax

"One of the beautiful things about baseball is that every once in a while you come into a situation where you want to, and where you have to, reach down and prove something."

- Nolan Ryan

"Pitching is the art of instilling fear."

- Sandy Koufax

"Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing."

- Warren Spahn

"I’m a huge advocate of pitching. You have to have good pitching as the solid core, the foundation. It keeps you in every game."

- Tom Seaver

"My job isn’t to strike guys out; it’s to get them out - sometimes by striking them out."

- Tom Seaver

"My pitching philosophy is simple - keep the ball away from the bat."

- Satchel Paige

"Mental attitude and concentration are the keys to pitching"

- Ferguson Jenkins

"Do what you love to do and give it your very best. Whether it’s business or baseball, or the theater, or any field. If you don’t love what you’re doing and you can’t give it your best, get out of it. Life is too short."

- Al Lopez

"A winner is somebody who goes out there every day and exhausts himself trying to get something accomplished.."

- Joe Torre

"Never allow the circumstances of your life to become an excuse. People will allow you to do it. But I believe we have a personal obligation to make the most of the abilities we have."

- Jim Abbott

"To succeed in baseball, as in life, you must make adjustments."

- Ken Griffey Jr.

"If my uniform doesn't get dirty, I haven't done anything in the baseball game."

- Rickey Henderson

"I'd walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play baseball."

- Pete Rose

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."

- Albert Pujols

"One of the beautiful things about baseball is that every once in a while you come into a situation where you want to, and where you have to, reach down and prove something"

- Nolan Ryan

"Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer."

- Ted Williams

"I always try to do the best I can in every at-bat, every game. Just try to be consistent."

- Mike Trout

"You don't just accidentally show up in the World Series."

- Anthony Rizzo

"It's not about the name on the back of the jersey; it's about the name on the front."

- David Wright

"You can't worry about what people say about you. You just have to go out and do your job, and that's what I focus on."

- Manny Machado

"I'm not afraid to fail. I'm not afraid to fall over and make a mistake."

- Dustin Pedroia

"I don't care about three hits in a game; I care about going 3-for-4 and helping the team win."

- Christian Yelich

"I want to be the best. I want to be the best at what I do."

- Cody Bellinger

"You've got to have that edge to compete at the highest level."

- Gerrit Cole

"There's always room for improvement, no matter how long you've been in the game."

- Justin Verlander

"If you have a bad day in baseball, and start thinking about it, you will have 10 more."

- Sammy Sosa

"Remember two things: play hard and have fun."

- Tony Gwynn

"It isn’t hard to be good from time to time in sports. What is tough is being good every day"

- Willie Mays

"When I played ball, I didn’t play for fun… It’s no pink tea, and Mollycoddles had better stay out. It’s a contest and everything that implies, a struggle for supremacy, a survival of the fittest."

- Ty Cobb

"A person always doing his or her best becomes a natural leader, just by example."

- Joe DiMaggio

"If a ballplayer is satisfied, he’s going to slip. You have to keep fighting to improve."

- Nellie Fox

"When you get up to the plate, nobody’s there to help you. You’ve got to do this on your own."

- Ichiro Suzuki

"You don’t save a pitcher for tomorrow. Tomorrow it may rain."

- Leo Durocher

"There's nothing wrong with pitch counts. But when it’s spit out by a computer, the computer does not look at an individual's mechanics. And you can’t look at his genes. It should come from the individual and the pitching coach and the manager."

- Tom Seaver

"I think all of us are thankful every day we get to put this uniform on, and we play this game. So try not to take any days for granted. Every time you take the field, give a hundred percent and leave it all out there."

- Jacob deGrom

"Never permit the pressure to exceed the pleasure."

- Joe Maddon

"You've got to have fun. Regardless of how you feel inside, you've got to project positive energy."

- Manny Ramirez

"Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa."

- Casey Stengel

"Never say never in this game because crazy stuff can happen."

- Mark Buehrle

"I think about baseball when I wake up in the morning. I think about it all day and I dream about it at night. The only time I don’t think about it is when I’m playing it."

- Carl Yastrzemski

"People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring."

- Rogers Hornsby

"You can't let the highs be too high and the lows be too low."

- Ryan Howard

"You've got to love the process."

- Mike Soroka

"You have to have a lot of little boy in you to play baseball for a living."

- Roy Campanella

"My approach every game is to try to keep the ball down and get ground ball outs"

- Jacob deGrom

"There is no set numerical value you can put on a pitcher. They’re all different"

- Tom Seaver

"I never threw an illegal pitch. The trouble is, once in a while I toss one that ain’t never been seen by this generation."

- Satchel Paige

"Basically, hitters fall into a pattern, and once you know what they like, you can set them up for the putout with something else."

- Tom Seaver

"The final release point for the fastball is the tips of your fingers"

- Steve Carlton

"Everything I was, physically, and mentally, that’s what I put on that field."

- Steve Carlton

"You never want to see a guy struggle. And we’ve all struggled. It’s part of the game."

- Jacob deGrom

"The pitcher has to find out if the hitter is timid, and if he is timid, he has to remind the hitter he’s timid."

- Don Drysdale

"That’s how you win - pitching and defense."

- Derek Jeter

"No baseball pitcher would be worth a darn without a catcher who could handle the hot fastball."

- Casey Stengel

"Normally when I look at stuff, I try to look at the good things. When I watch video, I try to watch the good starts so I can see how my mechanics are in those."

- Jacob deGrom

"Whenever we had career day at elementary school, and we could dress up like what you wanted to be when I got on stage, mine was playing major league baseball."

- Jacob deGrom

"I had 12 years under my belt of baseball at the amateur level before I got to the big leagues"

- Tom Seaver

"But I would say basically, I would just like to be remembered for what I did on the field"

- Steve Carlton

"Poets are like baseball pitchers. Both have their moments. The intervals are the tough things."

- Robert Lee Frost