Tony Gwynn Quotes

People always ask me how I can hit the ball so far, and I say, 'I just swing.' It's the coaches who first told me I had good bat speed. I was just swinging, and I guess it was fast. I'm pretty fast at everything.

Some batters, and good ones too, scoff at the whole theory of place hitting, calling it a myth. They are wrong, however.

I am an arm hitter. When you snap the bat with your wrists just as you meet the ball, you give the bat tremendous speed for a few inches of its course. The speed with which the bat meets the ball is the thing that counts.

I'm 5-foot-9, 180 pounds. I don't have much else to work with, so I just try to use my bat speed and get the most out of what I've got.

I always talk about it like I'm a hitter first and if I'm doing things right and my body's in the right place, I drive the baseball.

I want to be able to drive the ball to all fields.

Coming up through high school, coaches would tell me not to swing so hard. It's the only way I know. It just happens.

I swing hard all the time. That's what I've done my whole life - hit.

You get to the plate and nothing is going through your mind. You see the ball, you see the seams.

I could always hit. I learned to hit with a broomstick and a ball of tape and I could always get that bat on the ball.

There is no doubt that because I am a switch hitter I have one of the best offensive advantages that a hitter can have.

How to hit home runs: I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball.

I keep things pretty simple.

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 own style is one of not much effort.

I'm really low maintenance for a girl. I pretty much shower, attempt to fix my hair, throw on some mineral make up, and go.

To be a good hitter you've got to do one thing - get a good ball to hit.

My theory of hitting was just to watch the ball as it came in and hit it.

The hardest thing to do is something that is close to nothing.

Joe Torre would tell you to make sure you can hit the ball on the outside part of the plate.

You gotta keep the ball off the fat part of the bat.

The fellows that I played with encouraged me to bunt and beat the ball out. I was anxious to make good and did as I was told. When I came to Brooklyn, I adopted an altogether different style of hitting. I stood flat-footed at the plate and slugged. That was my natural style.

I am happy with the way I hit the ball. There is a certain element of power into it but not completely. It is like 80 per cent timing and 20 per cent power. Why do I need power hitting when I can clear the ropes with timing?

Everybody believed you had to have a big piece of lumber and then muscle the ball over the fence. But by the time I and Hank Aaron - another guy who did it with his wrists - were through, there were a lot of guys ordering light bats and playing handball.

I think my mindset and my approach is to hit the ball hard, whether it be first pitch or work the count.