Reggie Jackson Quotes

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

I was never a strikeout pitcher. Why should I throw eight or nine balls to get a man out when I got away with three or four?

If someone throws you a good slider, you're not going to hit it. You've got to always hunt those ones that kind of pop up or hang thigh-high or up.

When I'm at the plate, I'm not thinking about what I'm trying to do with the bat - I'm thinking about what the pitcher is trying to do with the ball.

I think about how a guy mentally prepared himself to do battle, to go out and face the pitcher. I think so many hitters do not know how to get themselves prepared to play or hit against a pitcher. You have to mentally be prepared to hit against all pitchers.

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

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

I don't think I'm a home run hitter. Most of my home runs are line drives. If I hit it, thanks God. But it's not the kind of thing that I think about. I just go out there and try to have a better season than I had before. Home runs are not in my mind.

I looked for the same pitch my whole career, a breaking ball. All of the time. I never worried about the fastball. They couldn't throw it past me, none of them.

Guessing what the pitcher is going to throw is 80% of being a successful hitter. The other 20% is just execution.

There's no easier pitch to hit than a splitter that doesn't do anything.

Everybody in the league knew I had trouble with the inside pitch. I got away with it only because the great majority of pitchers were afraid of making a mistake in that spot. The threat of power is one of the best weapons you have in the batter's box.

If I can execute pitches and keep the ball out of the middle of the plate, I know I can have success.

I know when I get to 0-2, 1-2, when I'm ahead in the count, that I hold a distinct advantage over every single hitter. I have so many options because I don't have to work within the strike zone anymore.

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.

Getting my curveball back and finding another pitch just helped me figure out how to pitch.

The big thing will be having two pitches you can throw for strikes and developing a change-up, too.

I'm not trying to strike them out, but there are certain situations, when it's an 0-2 count or a 1-2 count, when I want to have a pitch where I want to strike you out.

At the end of the day, all we're trying to do is get the hitter off balance. Get him in a position where he's not strong in the strike zone.

At this point, I'm just grinding through it, trying to establish strikes in the zone with my pitches, using some information the opposition gives me, and kind of moving forward in that regard.

You never want to be in a defensive mode or have a defensive mindset. You always want to know that you're in control as the pitcher, you make him get hits, you're never passive, always aggressive. If I get beat, I want it to be because I got rocked, got hit hard, never because I walked a couple of guys and before you know it.

Within the changing room, everyone has always known I'm best when I pitch the ball up and get a little bit of movement.

What we can control is our readiness.

Learn the league, learn the pitchers, learn how they're going to go after you.

If a pitcher goes up there and he's throwing a ball and it's a breaking ball down and away or a fastball up and in, a perfect pitcher's pitch, and you're able to just foul it off and stay alive in the at-bat, just keep grinding, keep working through the at-bat and hoping for that mistake that he's going to make. And if he doesn't, then you walk.