Whitey Herzog Quotes

I don't try to hit home runs. I just try to meet the ball and get base hits.

[A knuckleball is] a curve ball that doesn't give a damn.

One day he [Wagner] was batting against a young pitcher who had just come into the league. The catcher was a kid, too . The pitcher threw Honus a curve ball, and he swung at it and missed and fell down. Looked helpless as a robin. I was kind of surprised, but the guy sitting next to me poked me in the ribs and said, 'Watch this next one.' Those kids figured they had the old man's weakness, you see, and served him up the same dish - as he knew they would. Well, Honus hit a line drive so hard the fence in left field went back and forth for five minutes.

The true harbinger of spring is not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of the bat on the ball.

'Get up and hit a home run,' has never been a part of the usable technique of any manager.

Your most precious possessions on offense are your twenty-seven outs.

I used to be a pretty good hit-and-run man when I played in the minors. I handled the bat well and could hit the ball to the right side of the infield. Nevertheless, I know that you often give the opposition an out on the hit-and-run play.

To me, hitting the ball in the air means hitting a line drive, and I hit far more balls in the air.

If there's a runner on third with less than two outs, I clearly do not want to strike out.

That's why, to me, Spring Training is so hard, because every time you go up there, there's a new pitcher, and you have to come up with a new plan.

I hit balls hard on the ground, and sometimes they are double plays. Other times, you hit it hard, and it's right through a hole.

I think my job is to keep the ball down. I always say I try to go out there and get early contact, and strikeouts just seem to happen.

There are some players I always watched, various players who I knew hit the ball well.

With a runner at second base with nobody out, you're trying to punch somebody out. You understand when there are guys in scoring position; hitters like to be aggressive early.

We know you can bunt, Mick. You're not down here to bunt. You're here to get some hits and get your swing back.

I thought about it a lot (losing the 2002 NLCS). It's something you have to go home and wrap it up because if you keep thinking about it, you're going to take that to Spring Training and you're not going to be able to concentrate on your work.

Larry Lintz steals second standing up. He slid, but he didn't have to.

Just getting to first base seems to be a problem for you two," Cam couldn't resist saying.

Spring training means flowers, people coming outdoors, sunshine, optimism and baseball. Spring training is a time to think about being young again.

I never thought home runs were all that exciting. I still think the triple is the most exciting thing in baseball. To me, a triple is like a guy taking the ball on his 1-yard line and running 99 yards for a touchdown.

Some of the longest home runs I've hit, I didn't actually realize they were going that far. Everyone says, 'What does it feel like to hit the ball that far?' Actually, there's no feeling at all. I know when the ball meets the bat whether or not it's left the park. It's a nice easy thing.

[On Willie Mays] He was something like zero for twenty-one the first time I saw him. His first major league hit was a home run off me and I'll never forgive myself. We might have gotten rid of Willie (Mays) forever if I'd only struck him out.

Probably the most dramatic change in pitching I've observed in my years in baseball has been the disappearance of the knockdown or brushback pitch. This is why record numbers of home runs are flying out of ballparks, why earned run averages are soaring, and why there are so few twenty game winners in the majors.

In my day, if a guy came to spring training 20 pounds heavier than what he left, he was considered out of shape and was probably in trouble.

The way to get a ball past (Honus) Wagner is to hit it eight feet over his head.