I consider myself a line drive hitter with power. I just try to put my best swing on the ball every time.
Players who stand flat footed and swing with their arms are golfers, not hitters.
I'm seeing the ball well. I'm not trying for home runs. I'm trying to hit to right field more. When I do that, the home run comes.
The one unbreakable rule about hitting is this: if a batter hits well with his own particular stance and swing, think twice - or more - before suggesting a change.
Yeah, I'm going to go back (after hitting his 500th home run, but commenting on reaching the 3,000 hit plateau) to my Punch-and-Judy days, hit the ball the other way, start bunting the ball a little bit.
If I had played my career hitting singles like Pete (Rose), I'd wear a dress.
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.
To me, hitting the ball in the air means hitting a line drive, and I hit far more balls in the air.
I'm pretty close to Miguel Cabrera. We are such different hitters, but at the same time, we're pretty close because we both like to hit the ball middle-away.
I copied (Shoeless Joe) Jackson's style because I thought he was the greatest hitter I had ever seen, the greatest natural hitter I ever saw. He's the guy who made me a hitter.
I wouldn't describe myself as a home run hitter. I'm just trying to hit the ball hard in the gaps. Just backspinning baseballs and hitting line drives.
Major league hitters have more power. But Japanese hitters are very good at making contact. I don't like either.
Place hitting is, in a sense, glorified bunting. I only take a half swing at the ball, and the weight of the bat rather than my swing is what drives it.
There was a point at which I thought I'd never get the most valuable player, especially the years I played at Minnesota. We never won a pennant there, we were far away from the big media centers of Los Angeles and New York, and I wasn't a flashy power hitter but a guy who hit to spots, who bunted and stole bases.
In college and high school, you're always taught to hit the ball on the ground and on a line.
The advent of the rubber ball was instrumental in creating an entirely different method of striking the object. The solid ball required to be hit for carry, whereas it was quickly apparent that the Haskell lent itself to an enormous run. I hold the firm opinion that from this date the essential attitude towards accuracy was completely lost sight of. This was the start of the craze for length and still more length.
He batted against spitballs, shineballs, emeryballs and all the other trick deliveries. He never figured anything out or studied anything with the same scientific approach I gave it. He just swung. If he'd ever had any knowledge of batting, his average would have been phenomenal. ... he seemed content to just punch the ball, and I can still see those line drives whistling to the far precincts. Joe Jackson hit the ball harder than any man ever to play baseball.
