Quotes about batting
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“Hall: Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is a wonderful country - I've been there umpteen times and it is being brought to extinction by Mugabe. The average life expectancy is 33, so if you are not dying from Aids, malnutrition, starvation, deprivation or stagnation, don your flannels, black up, play leather on willow. Mugabe as captain and witch doctor, imagine him out at Lord's casting a tincture of bats' tongues and gorillas' gonads.”

Stuart Hall (1929–2014) sociologist and cultural theorist

BBC Fighting Talk (2005)

Life, Imagination, Time, Country

“If people got hit on the head by a baseball bat every week, pretty soon they would invent reasons why getting hit on the head with a baseball bat was a good thing.”

Eliezer Yudkowsky (1979) American blogger, writer, and artificial intelligence researcher

How to Seem (and Be) Deep http://lesswrong.com/lw/k8/how_to_seem_and_be_deep/ (October 2007)

People

“When I am at home, I never go near the synagogue unless, say, there is a bar or bat mitzvah involving the children of friends. But when I am traveling, in a country where Jewish life is scarce or endangered, I often make a visit to the shul.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2003-11-18
Al-Qaida's Latest Target: Understanding the Istanbul synagogue bombings
Slate
1091-2339
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2003/11/alqaidas_latest_target.html
2000s, 2003

Life, Children, Travel, Home

“Ozzy Osbourne has his bats, and I have that darn "convert them to Christianity" quote. Some may not like what I said, but I'm still waiting to hear a better suggestion.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2003, Treason : Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (2003)

Quotes, Waiting

“Batting coaches are just as important as pitching coaches. Lefty O'Doul gave me good advice when he said: "Don't ever let them change you." I also asked for help from Cobb, Foxx and Hornsby.”

Ted Williams (1918–2002) American professional baseball player

As quoted in "Here's the Pitch" by Frank Finch, in The Los Angeles Times (June 5, 1958), p. C2

Change, Help

“I am tired of playing in a shadow Everything I do they compare to Paul Waner. I am not Paul Waner's shadow. I try not to let it bother me, but I get tired of the things some people say. They call me a showboat because I make basket catches. They don't call Willie Mays a showboat, do they? They say I'm a hypochondriac, too. When I have trouble with my back, they say it's in my mind. In Houston last year, right before the end of the season, I was still in the race for the batting title and Murtaugh told me to do everything possible to win it. One time I was being intentionally walked and I swung at one of the pitches. Then I wasn't a team player any more. People said I was out for myself.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Roberto's Not Happy; Clemente in Waner's Shadow" https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/15674492/ by Sandy Padwe (NEA), in The Indiana Gazette (July 2, 1964), p. 16 Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1964</big>

People, Time, Season

“… We talked while the full moon mounted in the sky, words filling up the narrow space between us, as much a buffer as a link. Hours passed and then suddenly at my foot there was a wriggle of the soil. A kangaroo mouse emerged, a creature that I have never otherwise seen except fleeing at a distance. I put my hand on the man’s shoulder to call his attention to this surprise, and we fell silent and watched the strangely fearless mouse do its work for a long time, then resumed the conversation more slowly and more softly as the creature continued to refine its tunnel entrance and the mound of gravelly earth at its mouth, indifferent to our presence. Bats swooped down and snatched invisible meals from the air, and coyotes began to howl, more of them, closer and more persistently than I’ve ever heard before or since, a whole orchestra of drawn-out cries into the dawn.”

Rebecca Solnit (1961) Author and essayist from United States

A Field Guide to Getting Lost (2005)

Time, Indifference

“If you happen to be a baseball fan who reads the newspapers you've probably noticed that before a world series or any other big series the writers always print long stories of comparisons between individual players. They point out that Lou Gehrig, for instance, will hit a ball farther and harder than Joe Harris, but that Pie Traynor can go farther to his left than Joe Dugan. That's interesting—but so far as doping out the winner of the series is concerned, it's bunk. And it always gives the ball players a laugh. For ball players know that it isn't individuals who count. It's the way a team plays as a whole that determines its offensive power or its defensive strength. Smart ball players and smart managers consider offense and defense as units, knowing that it takes nine men to do the fielding and nine hitters to make up a batting order that will score runs.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

"Chapter II," Babe Ruth's Own Book of Baseball (1928), pp. 19-20; reprinted as "Babe Ruth's Own Story — Chapter II: Baseball Game Is Like a Battle; Two Big Divisions, Offense and Defense; What They Are," https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rksbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=J0sEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2024%2C3275342&dq=if-read-newspapers-way-team-plays-whole in The Pittsburgh Press (December 21, 1928), p. 52

Men, World, Way, Reading

“How unflappable do you have to be to go to work, find a stone head on the doorstep, and just go about your day sorting the mail as usual? I'll bet she could pose for a portrait by Pricasso and not bat an eye.”

Pricasso (1949) Australian painter

[Intriguing news reports fresh off the Internet, 5 October 2007, Mary Hanna, Tri-Valley Herald, Pleasanton, California]
About

“Again, he violated the one-question rule right off the bat. Obviously, you didn't listen to the will of the people.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

News conference (4 November 2004) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27833-2004Nov5.html 2000s, 2004

People, Question

“Ah hate cunts like that. Cunts like Begbie. Cunts that are intae basebaw-batting every fucker that's different; pakis, poofs, n what huv ye. Fuckin failures in a country ay failures. It's nae good blamin it oan the English fir colonising us. Ah don't hate the English. They're just wankers. We are colonised by wankers. We can't even pick a decent, vibrant, healthy culture to be colonised by. No. We're ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? The lowest of the fuckin low, tha's what, the scum of the earth. The most wretched, servile, miserable, pathetic trash that was ever shat intae creation. Ah don't hate the English. They just git oan wi the shite thuv goat. Ah hate the Scots.”

Irvine Welsh book Trainspotting

Renton, "Relapsing: The Glass" (Chapter 2, Story 2).
Trainspotting (1993)

Hate, Failure, Country

“I was on this German talk show and this woman said to me, she said, "Mr. Williams, why do you think there's not so much comedy in Germany?" I said, "Did you ever think you killed all the funny people?" [laughter and applause] And…it was…and here's where it got interesting. She didn't bat an eyelash. She just went "No". At that point, even God's going, "Do you get it?!"”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

German comedy: "Knock-knock--We ask the questions!".
Weapons of Self Destruction (2010)

God, People, Question, Thinking

“Sri Lanka will suffer with their batting after Sangakkara's retirement. It will be very difficult for them to win the next Test without him around”

Kumar Sangakkara (1977) Sri Lankan cricketer

Sunil Gavaskar, "Kumar Sangakkara's Retirement Will Hit Sri Lanka Hard, Says Sunil Gavaskar" http://sports.ndtv.com/sri-lanka-vs-india-2015/news/247486-kumar-sangakkara-s-retirement-will-hit-sri-lanka-hard-says-sunil-gavaskar, August 24, 2015. About

Suffering

“I tend to gravitate toward the more powerful roles. As opposed to the doe-eyed girl who bats her eyelashes and runs around in towels, you now what I mean? Because that kind of makes me want to vomit.”

Julia Stiles (1981) American actress

Movieline, September 1998.

Girl

“Earthly joy can take but a bat-like flight, always checked, always limited, in dusk and darkness. But the love of Christ breaks through the vaulting, and leads us up into the free sky above, expanding to the very throne of Jehovah, and drawing us still upward to the infinite heights of glory.”

Frances Ridley Havergal (1836–1879) British poet and hymn-writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 399.

Love, Joy, Christ, Drawing

“Vester: You say you'd rather not talk to liberals at all?
Coulter: I think a baseball bat is the most effective way these days.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

Exchange on DaySide with Linda Vester on FOX News (6 October 2004) as quoted in "Ann Coulter on tour: "I think a baseball bat is the most effective way these days" to talk to liberals" (7 October 2004) http://mediamatters.org/research/200410070004. 2004

Way, Thinking

“Hayden marches down the pitch towards Collymore, bat raised, as if he's just returned from the theatre to find him rifling through his wife.”

Ben Dirs journalist

West Indies v Australia, 2007-27-03, BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/6496463.stm,

“Look, if you take the best batting team in the world, they too will have their weaknesses -- otherwise, wouldn't they win all the time? You mention any team to me, and I will pick out for you a dozen weaknesses. But that is not the point -- these things, like fielding, running between wickets, all these are technical things, they can be learnt and practised.”

Kapil Dev (1959) Indian cricketer

In an interview on "Fielding, running between wickets" quoted in The Rediff Cricket Interview / Kapil Dev, 20 December 2013, Rediff.com http://www.rediff.com/sports/1998/sep/01a.htm,

World, Time

“When Laman bats, you just watch him and tell yourself not to carried away.”

V. V. S. Laxman (1974) former Indian cricketer

Sachin Tendulkar http://www.scrolldroll.com/quotes-about-vvs-laxman-that-show-he-is-truly-very-very-special/

“Is this thing even worth reviewing? Right off the bat, I'm glad to see that my initial reactions to this thing were accurate. Anyone who believes this thing is a game changer is a tool. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is.”

Paul Thurrott (1966) American podcaster, author, and blogger

Apple iPad Hands-On First Impressions http://winsupersite.com/article/product-review/apple-ipad-hands-on-first-impressions in Paul Thurrott's Supersite For Windows (6 October 2010)

Way, Game

“I would like a bat with the words WHAT A ROTTEN WICKET-KEEPER stamped in large letters on the back of it.”

Herbert Farjeon (1879–1972) American playwright, theater manager, critic, and researcher (1887–1945)

Herbert Farjeon's Cricket Bag

“I carried this rubber ball with me all the time. I squeezed it to strengthen my fingers and wrists and my friend and I would walk to and from school throwing the rubber ball back and forth. Many times at night, I laid in the bed and threw the ball against the ceiling and caught it. Baseball was my whole life. I would forget to eat because of baseball and one time my mother wanted to punish me. She started to burn my bat, but I got it out of the fire and saved it. Many times today she tells me how wrong she was and how right I was to want to play baseball. I bought my parents their home in Puerto Rico and gave them possessions they never thought they’d ever see. All from baseball.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in “Clouter Clemente: Popular Buc; Rifle-Armed Flyhawk Aims At Second Bat Crown”
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1964</big>

Life, School, Home, Parent

“When he walks in, whether you are batting in the middle or sitting in the pavilion and a wicket has fallen, he brings calm to the whole dressing room. I, personally, get a feeling of calm and solidity, not because Laxman will always score but because you know that he will never let you down in terms of effort: you know that he is there and he will pull his weight. There is no higher compliment. You know he has the requisite quality, and that he can read situations well. He has turned up in every circumstance: bad pitches, good pitches, when setting a total or after the opposition has piled up a big score.”

V. V. S. Laxman (1974) former Indian cricketer

Rahul Dravid in a column after Laxman had played his 100th Test.
Source: http://cricket.yahoo.com/photos/if-you-get-laxman-it-s-a-miracle-slideshow/england-and-india-nets-session-photo-1345279931.html

Feeling, Effort, Reading, Personality

“I don't actually like watching cricket that much and would prefer to be out there batting and just getting the job done.”

Steve Smith (cricketer) (1989) Australian international cricketer

Steve Smith after scoring 23rd test century. https://www.cricket.com.au/news/steve-smith-century-australia-england-ashes-mcg-boxing-day-video-highlights-bradman-ponting/2017-12-30%3fmode=amp, 30 December, 2017.

“This thing here, which looks like a wooden club, is actually several pieces of particular wood cunningly put together in a certain way so that the whole thing is sprung, like a dance floor. It's for hitting cricket balls with. If you get it right, the cricket ball will travel two hundred yards in four seconds, and all you've done is give it a knock like knocking the top off a bottle of stout, and it makes a noise like a trout taking a fly. What we're trying to do is to write cricket bats, so that when we throw up an idea and give it a little knock, it might…travel.”

Tom Stoppard The Real Thing

Henry, Act II, scene V
The Real Thing (1982)

Way, Travel, Idea, Dance

“Brother Leon arrived late for the performance. His late entrance was not a surprise. Everybody knew that Leon hated the student skits and sketches. Too often there had been hilarious takeoffs on the faculty and, a few years ago, a devastating burlesque of Brother Leon by a student named Henry Boudreau. Boudreau had minced across the stage, speaking in a prissy voice, wielding an oversized baseball bat the way Leon used his teacher's pointer, as a weapon. The performance had become a legend at Trinity. But funny thing about Boudreau: He had flunked out at the end of the year.”

Robert Cormier book Beyond the Chocolate War

Source: Beyond the Chocolate War (1985), p. 246-247

Hate, Way, Teachers

“When it was assumed that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs, it was correspondingly presumed that their flight evolved among climbers that first glided and then developed powered flight. This has the advantage that we know that arboreal animals can evolve powered flight with the aid of gravity, as per bats. When it was realized that birds descended from deinonychosaurs, many researchers switched to the hypothesis that running dinosaurs learned to fly from the ground up. This has the disadvantage that it is not certain whether it is practical for tetrapod flight to evolve among ground runners working against gravity.
The characteristics of birds indicate that they evolved from dinosaurs that had first evolved as bipedal runners, and then evolved into long armed climbers. If the ancestors of birds had been entirely arboreal, then they should be semiquadrupedal forms whose sprawling legs were integrated into the main airfoil, like bats. That birds are bipeds whose erect legs are separate from the wings indicates that their ancestors evolved to run.”

Gregory Scott Paul book The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs

Gregory S. Paul (2010) The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, Princeton University Press, p. 52
The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs

Bird, Learning, Animals, Flying

“The records I end up liking I don't like right off the bat. I want to call our next record Tenth Listen. That's the test.”

Blake Schwarzenbach (1967) American singer

[Parker, Jeff, http://www.hypertxt.com/parker/clips/jawbreak/jawbrk4.html, "Interview with Blake Schumacher", p. 4, Jawbreaker http://www.hypertxt.com/parker/clips/jawbreak/jawbrk.html, Hypertext.com, 2006-09-06] Interviews

“Whales have calves,
Cats have kittens
Bears have Cubs,
Bats have bittens,
Swans have cygnets,
Seals have puppies,
But guppies just have little guppies.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

"The Guppy"
Versus (1949)

Cats

“In what other world is myth so harmless? Great battles kill and maim; great homers and no-hitters are pure joy or deep tragedy without practical consequence […]. Life is inherently ambiguous; baseball games pit pure good against abject evil. Even Saddam Hussein must have committed one act of kindness in his life, but what iota of good could possibly be said for aluminum bats or the designated hitter rule?”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

"Baseball and the Two Faces of Janus", p. 272; originally published as "The Virtues of Nakedness" in The New York Review of Books (1990-10-11)
Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville (2003)

Life, World, Game, Evil

“So God stepped over to the edge of the world
And He spat out the seven seas;
He batted His eyes, and the lightnings flashed;
He clapped His hands, and the thunders rolled;
And the waters above the earth came down,
The cooling waters came down.”

James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) writer and activist

The Creation, st. 6.
God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (1927)

God, World, Water, Sea

“I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the clubfooted ghoul come near me.”

Louis MacNeice (1907–1963) poet

"Prayer Before Birth", line 1, from Springboard (1944)

“We had a very good side with an experienced batting lineup and strong variety in our bowling but going into the tournament, it was not the most settled time for Sri Lankan cricket, with some disputes going on. But all of this actually brought us closer together as a team; it made us even more determined to do our job for the supporters and the country. In the end, it was an emotional way for myself and Mahela to sign off from our Twenty20 international careers.”

Kumar Sangakkara (1977) Sri Lankan cricketer

Kumar Sangakkara on Mahela as a coaching consultant for England, quoted on The Guardian, "Kumar Sangakkara: England made smart move on mentor Mahela Jayawardene" http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/mar/13/kumar-sangakkara-england-mahela-jayawardene-world-twenty20-sri-lanka, March 13, 2016.

Way, Support, Strong, Time

“On a treacherous wicket all the batsman can do is to watch the ball with all his might and let the bat follow the eye.”

K. S. Ranjitsinhji book The Jubilee Book of Cricket

The Jubilee Book of Cricket (1897)

“Through massive immigration and official dhimmitude from European leaders, Muslims are accomplishing today what they have tried but failed to do for over a millennium: conquer Europe. If current demographic trends continue, France, Holland, and other Western European nations could have Muslim majorities by mid-century. … Europe is now reaping what it has long sown. Bat Ye'or, the pioneering historian of dhimmitude, chronicles how this has come to pass. Europe, she explains, began thirty years ago to travel down a path of appeasement, accommodation, and cultural abdication in pursuit of shortsighted political and economics benefits. She observe that today, "Europe has evolved from a Judeo-Christian civilization, with important poste-Enlightenment/secular elements, to a 'civilization of dhimmitued,", i. e, Eurabia: a secular-Muslim transitional society withits traditional Judeo-Christian more rapidly disappearing."”

Robert Spencer (1962) American author and blogger

Stealth jihad: how radical Islam is subverting America without guns or bombs, 2008, ISBN 9781596985568, pp. 270-273 http://books.google.com/books?id=3eLfhvNQBkgC&pg=PA270 … France and Germany have pursued a different strategy, attempting to establish the European Union as a global counterweight of the United States—a strategy that involves close cooperation with the Arab League.

Travel

Mahela Jayawardene (1977) Former Sri Lankan cricketer

Way, Support, Strong, Time

“Fifteen years ago, there was this country called the Soviet Union that had over 10,000 nuclear warheads pointed at us… they're not there anymore. That's a good thing. And when people talk about how the world is more dangerous now than it was because we had these terrorists running around, my reply is, you know, a terrorist is like a buzzing mosquito. About 15 years ago, there was a great, big vampire bat; that's several orders of magnitude different from a mosquito. So the world is much safer — a lot safer than it was. It's not perfectly safe, but it's a heck of a lot safer than it was.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

2000s, Larry King Live (2000)

People, World, Country

“You gotta understand that people attach me and Jim Steinman. But you really have to attach Todd Rundgren to that. … you really have to credit Todd Rundgren for the initial mark. Yes, Steinman had things in his head. And, yes, I had some things in my head; I had how “All Revved Up with No Place to Go” should sound in my head. Jim had how “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)” should sound in his head. But pulling things out of your head and accomplishing them, and somebody else trying to accomplish them, is a remarkable feat. … So not taking anything away from Jim, ‘cause Jim is an absolute genius and one of the smartest people that I’ve ever known, and I consider him one of my best friends. But, y’know, sometimes, people just… they pigeonhole things, and they go, “Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf.” And my thing is, no, stop it! Because the Bat Out of Hell records are this: it’s a big wheel, and everybody is a spoke in that wheel… and, at different times as that wheel’s turning, different people have more input than others. It’s, like, as a wheel turns, the bottom spokes take more than the top spokes…but, pretty soon, those are gonna be the bottom spokes, and their import is more. And, so, that’s how that goes with the Bat Out of Hell records… and that’s exactly Bat Out of Hell III.”

Meat Loaf (1947) American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer and actor

On credit for the Bat out of Hell albums.
A chat with Meat Loaf (2006)

People, Hell, Understanding, Time

“Charley Somers, who owned the Indians, was the most generous club owner I have ever seen… The first year I came up to Cleveland, in 1910, I led the league unofficially in hitting. When I went to talk contract with him for 1911, I told him I wanted $10,000. He wasn't figuring on giving me more than $6,000, and he wouldn't listen to me.
"I'll make a deal with you," I told him. "If I hit.400 you give me $10,000. If I don't, you don't give me a cent."
It was a deal, I signed the contract, and I hit.408. But I still didn't win the American League batting title. That was the year Ty Cobb hit.420. I was hitting.420 about three weeks before the season was over and Mr. Somers called me in to pay off, told me I could sit it out the rest of the season. I told him to wait until the season was ended and I wasn't quitting. I wrote my own contract the rest of the time I was in Cleveland.”

Joe Jackson (1887–1951) American baseball player

This is the Truth! (1949)

Time, Waiting, Season

“Brother Matthias had the right idea about training a baseball club. He made every boy on the team play every position in the game, including the bench. A kid might pitch a game one day and find himself behind the bat the next or perhaps out in the sun-field. You see Brother Matthias' idea was to fit a boy to jump in in any emergency and make good. So whatever I have at the bat or on the mound or in the outfield or even on the bases, I owe directly to Brother Matthias.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

On the mentoring he received from Brother Matthias Boutlier, Prefect of Discipline at St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, in "Ruth, As a Kid, Learns to Play in Any Position" http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1920/08/09/page/15/ by Ruth, as told to Westbrook Pegler (uncredited), in The Chicago Tribune (August 9, 1920), p. 15; reprinted as "We Did Everything," https://books.google.com/books?id=SAAlxi-0EZYC&pg=PA6&dq=%22Brother+Matthias+had+the+right+idea%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjv7_zWgLnQAhUJ7yYKHZQFA_EQ6AEIGjAB#v=onepage&q=%22Brother%20Matthias%20had%20the%20right%20idea%22&f=false in Playing the Game: My Early Years in Baseball (2011), p. 6

Game, Boy, Idea, Sun

“Contemplation The shining forth of That which is Unconditioned is as a fair mirror wherein shines the Eternal Light of God. It has no attributes, And here all the works of Reason fail. It is not God, But it is the Light whereby we see Him. Those who walk in the Divine Light discover in themselves the UnwalledEven though the eagle, king of birds, can with his powerful sight gaze steadfastly upon the brightness of the sun; yet do the weaker eyes of the bat fail and falter in the same It is neither thus nor thus, neither here nor there; for that which is Unconditioned hath enveloped all…Behold! such a following of the Way that is WaylessThe Love of God is a consuming Fire, which draws us out of ourselves and swallows us up in unity with God This revelation of the Father lifts the soul above the reason into the Imageless Nudity. There the soul is simple, pure, spotless, Empty of all things; And it is in this state of perfect emptiness that the Father manifests His Divine radiance is a knowing that is unconditioned,
For ever dwelling above the Reason.
Never can it sink down into the Reason,
And above it can the Reason never climb.
The shining forth of That which is Unconditioned is as a fair mirror.
Wherein shines the Eternal Light of God.
It has no attributes,
And here all the works of Reason fail.
It is not God, But it is the Light whereby we see Him.
Those who walk in the Divine Light of it
Discover in themselves the Unwalled.
That which Unconditioned,
Is above the Reason, not without it:
It beholds all things without amazement.
Amazement is far beneath it:
The contemplative life is without amazement.
That which is Unconditioned, it knows not what;
For it is above all, and is neither This nor That.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Twelve Beguines

Love, Life, God, Way

“It's a good sign… because batting has probably been a worry for us. [Many have asked] 'Where are the next generation of batsmen coming from?' And all of a sudden we are starting to see some new names that give us some hope. It's good they've got an opportunity, and it's even better that they've taken it”

Greg Chappell (1948) Australian cricketer

Quoted on Canberra Times (February 5, 2016), "Spate of young batsmen making centuries shows Australia's batting depth improving" http://www.canberratimes.com.au/sport/cricket/spate-of-young-batsmen-making-centuries-shows-australias-batting-depth-improving-20160205-gmmvew.html

Hope

“No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

1970s, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971)

“I would love to do that. They (Kohli and Root) have been playing brilliantly. I love both. Outstanding cricketers and they have been fantastic for a long period of time. Watching these two bat and perform in the way they have been performing, you can learn a lot.”

Kane Williamson (1990) New Zealand cricketer

New Zealand captain and top batsman Kane Williamson, quoted on Indian Express, "England vs New Zealand: There’s plenty to learn from Virat Kohli and Joe Root, says Kane Williamson" http://indianexpress.com/article/sports/cricket/england-vs-new-zealand-theres-plenty-to-learn-from-virat-kohli-joe-root-says-kane-williamson/, March 31, 2016.

Love, Way, Learning, Time

“For years, I have been pleading with somebody in charge at Forbes Field to put clay instead of sand in the batter’s box. Sand causes your feet to slip. Clay gives you a chance to keep your feet solid. So all I got for years was sand and more sand. Batters would dig holes. I come to bat and scrape dirt to cover up the holes. Suddenly this year, they put clay in the batter’s box. Now I have firm footing. Now I can get a toe-hold.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in “Clemente Sinks Feet in Clay To Mold Stout Swat Figures” by Les Biederman, in The Sporting News (July 2, 1966), p. 8
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1966</big>

Chance, Box

“What I have learned, above all, is to keep marching forward because the best news is that since chance does play a role, one important factor in success is under our control: the number of at bats, the number of chances taken, the number of opportunities seized.”

Leonard Mlodinow book The Drunkard's Walk

Source: The Drunkard's Walk, Chapter 10, The Drunkard's Walk, p. 217

Learning, Chance, Success

“I'm gonna do four or five of these movies, and it's going to become my career. I'll have to keep expanding the bat suit, because I get fatter every year. I'll be bankrupt. I'll be out opening shopping malls, going from appearance to appearance in a cheesy van.”

Michael Keaton (1951) American actor

Reported in Bill Zehme, " Michael Keaton's Batman http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/batman-19890629", Rolling Stone (June 29, 1989).

Appearance

“I was in the hockey team in school, played football. One of the challenges for me was to make the team feel better. It helped me evolve, so batting at different positions was never a problem.”

Rahul Dravid (1973) Indian cricketer

School, Feeling, Problem, Help

“What can be more curious than that the hand of a man, formed for grasping, that of a mole for digging, the leg of the horse, the paddle of the porpoise, and the wing of the bat, should all be constructed on the same pattern, and should include the same bones, in the same relative positions? … Hence the same names can be given to the homologous bones in widely different animals. We see the same great law in the construction of the mouths of insects: what can be more different than the immensely long spiral proboscis of a sphinx-moth, the curious folded one of a bee or bug, and the great jaws of a beetle?—yet all these organs, serving for such different purposes, are formed by infinitely numerous modifications of an upper lip, mandibles, and two pairs of maxillæ. Analogous laws govern the construction of the mouths and limbs of crustaceans. So it is with the flowers of plants. Nothing can be more hopeless than to attempt to explain this similarity of pattern in members of the same class, by utility or by the doctrine of final causes.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter XIII: "Mutual Affinities of Organic Beings: Morphology: Embryology: Rudimentary Organs", pages 434-435 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=452&itemID=F373&viewtype=image

Law, Flowers, Bee, Animals

“Now the Englishmen suddenly came to life. Four runs later Harvey received a beast of a ball from Tyson which spat up at him and splashed off his bat to Cowdrey, 104 for 4.”

Margaret Hughes (1645–1719) British actress

The Long Hop (1955).

Life

“If nature has made you a bat, you shouldn't try and be an ostrich. You consider yourself odd at times, you accuse yourself of taking a road different from most people. You have to unlearn that! Gaze into the fire, the clouds and as soon as the inner voices begin to speak - surrender to them. Don't ask first whether it is permitted or would please your teachers or your father or some God. You will ruin yourself if you do that. That way you will become earth bound, a vegetable.”

Hermann Hesse book Demian

Source: Demian (1919), p. 180

God, People, Way, Nature

“In the morning when we began straggling out in small parties on our way to the trial, several of us went down in the elevator with three entirely correct old gentlemen looking much alike in their sleekness, pinkness, baldness, glossiness of grooming, such stereotypes as no proletarian novelist of the time would have dared to use as the example of a capitalist monster in his novel. We were pale and tightfaced; our eyelids were swollen; no doubt in spite of hot coffee and cold baths, we looked rumpled, unkempt, disreputable, discredited, vaguely guilty, pretty well frayed out by then. The gentlemen regarded us glossily, then turned to each other. As we descended the many floors in silence, one of them said to the others in a cream-cheese voice, "It is very pleasant to know we may expect things to settle down properly again," and the others nodded with wise, smug, complacent faces.
To this day, I can feel again my violent desire just to slap his whole slick face all over at once, hard, with the flat of my hand, or better, some kind of washing bat or any useful domestic appliance being applied where it would really make an impression — a butter paddle — something he would feel through that smug layer of too-well-fed fat.”

Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980) American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist

The Never-Ending Wrong (1977)

Way, Feeling, Coffee, Silence

“When he quit, he grew cotton down South, tinkered in real estate, owned an auto dealership, and made enough money so that once he tried to buy the Giants, and on other occasions tried to buy into the Dodgers and other clubs. Nothing ever came of it. He kept a hand in baseball, though. In 1955 he became president of the Sally League, and then there was the time he showed up for an old-timers' game at Yankee Stadium, Terry now over fifty years old, gray and more hunched than ever. It was surely an odd place to find this man who never got any fun out of baseball, as they say, but there he was, and at least he would go through the paces. He came to bat just once, and the pitch was inside, shoulder high. Terry, who held his bat at his shoulder, a motionless man at the plate, let loose his short, sweet stroke, and the ball was a blur, drilled on a long, high line into the upper deck of the Stadium, for a home run. Reporters never said whether Terry gave a little joyous leap or whether he clapped his hands or even smiled. But you know pride was like blood pounding through him.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

On Bill Terry's appearance at the New York Yankees' 1954 Old-Timers' Game https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=m6wnAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jeYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5763%2C5919284&dq=terrry-loses-lined-stands, from Greatest Giants of Them All (1967), pp. 143-144 Sports-related

Money, Smile, Home, Game

“He [Arjun Nair] started as a batsman and the bowling took over, now he's picking up the batting again, which is good because it is important he offers something [more] than his bowling. Finger spin in Australia is challenging at the best of times and you just have to give yourself more opportunities to be selected. In this professional age it is important he offers as much as possible to maximise the number of opportunities he gets. Fielding is another aspect, like all young cricketers. Arjun needs to make sure he nails that because you can't afford any deficiencies if you want to break through.”

Greg Chappell (1948) Australian cricketer

Chappel on cricketer Arjun Nair, The Sydney Morning Herald (January 30, 2016), "Arjun Nair is a name to remember, says Cricket Australia's Greg Chappell" http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/arjun-nair-is-a-name-to-remember-says-cricket-australias-greg-chappell-20160129-gmhk9z.html

Age, Time

“The American ash from which bats are made has an unusually high strength-to-weight ratio. Ash was celebrated in medieval times as the only proper wood from which to construct the lances of knights errant; an ash lance was light enough to carry and wield and strong enough to impale the opposition.”

Robert Adair (physicist) (1924) Physicist and author

Source: The Physics Of Baseball (Second Edition - Revised), Chapter 6, Properties Of Bats, p. 134

Light, Strong, Time

“The history of a species, or any natural phenomenon that requires unbroken continuity in a world of trouble, works like a batting streak. All are games of a gambler playing with a limited stake against a house with infinite resources. The gambler must eventually go bust. His aim can only be to stick around as long as possible, to have some fun while he's at it, and, if he happens to be a moral agent as well, to worry about staying the course with honor.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

"The Streak of Streaks", pp. 186–187; originally published in The New York Review of Books (1988-08-18)
Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville (2003)

World, History, Game, Nature

“Suspicions amongst thoughts, are like bats amongst birds, they ever fly by twilight. Certainly they are to be repressed, or at least well guarded: for they cloud the mind; they leese friends; and they check with business, whereby business cannot go on currently and constantly. They dispose kings to tyranny, husbands to jealousy, wise men to irresolution and melancholy. They are defects, not in the heart, but in the brain; for they take place in the stoutest natures.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Suspicion
Essays (1625)

Men, Jealousy, Business, Nature

“Embarrassing cricket tales. When I was about 14, my school team played against a school called Langdon, somewhere or other in the wilds of East London. They batted first and racked up 180-3 off 20 overs. We got 13. My PE teacher called it the most humiliating day of his life. Years later, he got done for sex offences. I wonder what he thinks now.”

Ben Dirs journalist

Cricket England v West Indies, First test, day five as it happened, 2007-05-21, 2007-05-26, BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/england/6675703.stm,

Life, School, Sex, Thinking

“On the last Sunday in September in smoggy Los Angeles, announcer Vin Scully riffed through some notes as Willie McCovey came to bat for the last time that season before the Chavez Ravine folks. "Let's see," said Scully, "no home runs since September 11…. Well, it's been a long season. McCovey's got to be tired. Big as he is, he's probably worn out." So Scully was looking down at his papers when he heard the familiar crack. Worn-out Willie had just driven the ball over the right field fence, over the bullpen, and into Glendale. Scully did not see the pitch McCovey hit. It had been a palm ball lobbed up by Pete Mikkelson, the kind of pitch that floats up like a dead flounder, and usually goes about as far as dead flounders fly when you hit one. If you hit one. This one traveled a couple of miles or more, and Willie McCovey had home run number 45, to break his tie with Hank Aaron and win for McCovey his second consecutive National League home-run title.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From "Willie McCovey: Now No. 1 Willie," in Baseball Stars of 1970 (March 1970), edited by Ray Robinson, p. 19
Sports-related

Angels, Travel, Home, Time

“At any rate, it would detract sadly from the richness of the game if deduction of character from a player's style was a forbidden pursuit, for undoubtedly the main reason why cricketers are remembered for years, for decades, after the heroes of other sports are forgotten is that they set the impress of character, apart from technical batting or bowling, on the minds of those who watched them, and whether that cricket-character falsely represented the real man is, in the last analysis, unimportant.”

Dudley Carew (1903–1981) English journalist, writer, poet and film critic

To the Wicket (1946)

Game, Sport, Falseness

“One man I know, and one only, who can be praised for his achievements in this science. Of discourses and battles of words he takes no heed: he follows the works of wisdom, and in these finds rest. What others strive to see dimly and blindly, like bats in twilight, he gazes at in the full light of day, because he is a master of experiment. Through experiment he gains knowledge of natural things, medical, chemical, indeed of everything in the heavens or earth. He is ashamed that things should be known to laymen, old women, soldiers, ploughmen, of which he is ignorant. Therefore he has looked closely into the doings of those who work in metals and minerals of all kinds; he knows everything relating to the art of war, the making of weapons, and the chase; he has looked closely into agriculture, mensuration, and farming work; he has even taken note of the remedies, lot casting, and charms used by old women and by wizards and magicians, and of the deceptions and devices of conjurors, so that nothing which deserves inquiry should escape him, and that he may be able to expose the falsehoods of magicians. If philosophy is to be carried to its perfection and is to be handled with utility and certainty, his aid is indispensable. As for reward, he neither receives nor seeks it. If he frequented kings and princes, he would easily find those who would bestow on him honours and wealth. Or, if in Paris he would display the results of his researches, the whole world would follow him. But since either of these courses would hinder him from pursuing the great experiments in which he delights, he puts honour and wealth aside, knowing well that his wisdom would secure him wealth whenever he chose. For the last three years he has been working at the production of a mirror that shall produce combustion at a fixed distance; a problem which the Latins have neither solved nor attempted, though books have been written upon the subject.”

Roger Bacon book Opus Tertium

Bridges assumes that Bacon refers here to Peter Peregrinus of Maricourt. Source: Opus Tertium, c. 1267, Ch. 13 as quoted in J. H. Bridges, The 'Opus Majus' of Roger Bacon (1900) Vol.1 http://books.google.com/books?id=6F0XAQAAMAAJ Preface p.xxv

Wisdom, Women, War, Books

“I first fell under the spell of cricket, as every other small boy will have done, by batting and bowling on the nearest available space the moment I got home from school.”

Geoffrey Moorhouse (1931–2009) English journalist and author

The Best-Loved Game (1979).

School, Home, Boy

“If I'd just tried for them dinky singles I could've batted around six hundred!”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

As quoted in Stolen! : A History of Base Stealing (1999) by Russell Roberts, Ch. 4 "The Babe Blasts the Steal" p. 71

“The Bible was very definitely written by men, and not superior men either; far from it! This is why so much of it can be shown to be historically and scientifically dead wrong about damned-near everything back-to-front. We’re talking about people who believe snakes and donkeys can talk, who believe in incantations, blood sacrifice, ritual spells, enchanted artifacts, pyrotechnic potions, astrology, and the five elements of witchcraft. They thought that if you use a magic wand to sprinkle blood all over someone, it will cure them of leprosy. We’re talking about people who think that rabbits chew cud, and that bats are birds, and whales are fish, and that π is a round number. These folks believed that if you display striped patterns to a pregnant cow, it would bare striped calves. How could anyone say that who knows anything about genetics? Obviously the authors of this book didn’t.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"2nd Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFrkjEgUDZA&list=PL126AFB53A6F002CC&index=2, Youtube (November 24, 2007) Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Men, People, Books, Bird

“Look, here is the way I swing. I swing hard. I don’t punch the ball. I have bat control, and I don’t go for home runs, but I still swing as hard as some fellows who swing for the fences. My back is practically to first base when I finish the swing. I have to turn around before I can start running. Sometimes the ball is in the fielder’s hands before I drop the bat.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

On how being right-handed negatively impacted his chances of batting .400, as quoted in "Aches, Pains... and Base Hits" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=W6lWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=xecDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7036%2C4509721 by Jim Murray, in The Los Angeles Times (August 10, 1971). Also see the above comment (August 11, 1964) re "stepping in the bucket." Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>

Way, Home

“My baby is alright,
She doesn't mind a bit of dirt,
She says 'Horror vampire bat bite, sex vampire, how I wish those bats would bite',
Woooooah! Bite! Bite! Release the bats!”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Song lyrics, Junkyard (1982), Release the Bats

Sex, Baby

“He was my favorite hitter. He could do almost anything he wanted to do at bat. He was a scientific hitter. I've seen him deliberately go for the home run late in a game and get it. Even if it meant pulling an outside pitch, he'd pull because he'd made up his mind to do it. Another thing I liked about him was the power he generated when he hit the ball between the infielders. This is a sure sign of a great hitter.”

Hank Aaron (1934) Retired American baseball player

On Stan Musial, as quoted in "The Scoreboard: Braves' Aaron Among Best of Bargains" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=w8IbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=n08EAAAAIBAJ&pg=7161%2C5971222 by Les Biederman, in The Pittsburgh Press (August 30, 1967)

Home, Game

“I've been talking only of some of the things Wagner did in the field. But he was a terror with that bat. The only other right-handed batter I could compare him with was Rogers Hornsby. Wagner could hit line drives into right field all day long. And when you started to shade him toward right field, he'd flip that bat, fake the third baseman into a bunt and hit it past him. And how he could run, too, even with his bowlegs. Honus had as much baseball instinct as I ever saw in a player. It was an education to play against him and a delight to watch him.”

Casey Stengel (1890–1975) American baseball player and coach

As quoted in "The Scoreboardː Stengelː 'Wagner Best I Ever Saw'" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_kYqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9U4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=7207%2C1231475

Education, Past

“I shut my eyes and clenched my hands behind me and saw, in lightning flashes, myself doing ferocious things, like pushing him down an endless flight of stairs, or dropping him without warning into a bottomless well, or stringing him up to a stout beam and leaving him to dangle, or — or other things of the sort; no guns, no knives, no baseball bats, nothing to cause outright bloodshed, just silent, grim, sudden murder by hand was my intention. All this was far beyond my bodily powers of course, and I like to believe beyond my criminal powers too. For I woke when we struck the searing hot light of the August morning as if I had come out of a nightmare, horrified at my own thoughts and feeling as if I had got some incurable wound to my very humanity — as indeed I had. However inflicted, a wound there was, with painful scar tissue, left upon my living self by that appalling event. My conscience stirs as if, in my impulse to do violence to my enemy, I had assisted at his crime.”

Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980) American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist

The Never-Ending Wrong (1977)

Pain, Feeling, Light

“Morpheus' gifts used to come to me in bottles, Beam and black Jack Daniel's, straight up with a frosted schooner of Jax on the side, while the rain poor down in the neon glow outside the window of an all-night bar not far from the Huey Long Bridge. In a half hour I could kick open a furnace door and fling into the flames all the snakes and squeaking bats that lived inside me. Except the next morning they would writhe with new life in the ashes and come back home, stinking and hungry.”

James Lee Burke (1936) Novelist, short story writer

A Morning for Flamingos (1990)

Life, Home, Night

“A kid copies what is good. I remember the first time I saw Lefty O'Doul, and he was as far away as those palms. And I saw the guy come to bat in batting practice. I was looking through a knothole, and I said, "Geez, does that guy look good!"”

Ted Williams (1918–2002) American professional baseball player

And it was Lefty O'Doul, one of the greatest hitters ever.
The Sporting News (1994)

Guy, Time

“One morning I woke up and found my favorite pigeon, Julius, had died I was devastated and was gonna use his crate as my stickball bat to honor him. I left the crate on my stoop and went in to get something and I returned to see the sanitation man put the crate into the crusher. I rushed him and caught him flush on the temple with a titanic right hand he was out cold, convulsing on the floor like an infantile retard.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

http://www.tv.com/mike-tyson/person/76381/trivia.html
On himself

“When he was done speaking, did he just then turn into a bat and fly away?”

Alan Grayson (1958) American politician

Hardball with Chris Matthews, MSNBC, October 22, 2009, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/#33439119. 2009, Regarding Dick Cheney

Flying

“A bat is born
Naked and blind and pale.
His mother makes a pocket of her tail
And catches him. He clings to her long fur
By his thumbs and toes and teeth.
And then the mother dances through the night
Doubling and looping, soaring, somersaulting —
Her baby hangs on underneath.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

"A bat is born," lines 1-31; reprinted as "Bats" in The Lost World (1965)
The Bat-Poet (1964)

Dance, Baby, Night

“I hit many what you call the "bad bol" pitches, and get good wood. The bol' travel like bullet. That remind me, I hit 565 foote hum-rum in Chicaga last year; the bol' disappear from centerfield, and Raj Hornsby tell me it longest drive he ever saw hit out of Wrigley Field. The bol' feel good on the bat but I feel bad at heart, when no writer with our team play up the big drive. I feel effort not appreciated.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted by Bill Nunn, Jr. in The New Pittsburgh Courier (June 25, 1960); reproduced in Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero https://books.google.com/books?id=jIhcvFs-k1cC&pg=PA98 (2006) by David Maraniss, p. 98 Comment: Clemente is not entirely correct. At least nationally (via TSN's weekly Pirates report), one veteran Pirates beat writer did do his part to publicize the blast. See Les Biederman (5/27/59 and 6/6/66) in Media, as well as Ernie Banks in Opponents. Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1960</big>

Travel, Feeling, Effort, Heart

“Alfie was an organizer. He would telephone the other kids a week before that first practice session (which he euphemistically called spring training), and he would knock on their doors the morning of, and they would look out the windows and say, "Hey, it's snowing," and he would say, "It's not snowing all that hard. See you in a half-hour." So we would gather our tired, cold bodies together, throw on our baseball clothes—old shirts, old pants, sneakers, old baseball gloves—and grab a couple of bats and scuffed-up balls, and we would pile onto the subway and ride to Van Cortland Park. We would run to make sure we'd be first to claim a ball field. Of course we were first. Nobody else was that crazy. My brother would direct practice for a couple of hours, batting practice, catching fungoes, fielding, practicing our curves and drops on the sidelines, fingers aching from contact with batted or thrown baseballs. We threw ourselves across that hard bone of a field so we would be ready when the spring suns finally thawed the ground at our feet. If the still-awake dreams of hunting lions in Africa were the peak moments of my night life, those frozen ball fields of February were the highlights of my days.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

Recalling his late brother, from "Life with Alfie," https://books.google.com/books?id=PWEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA233&dq=%22Alfie+was+an+organizer%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAGoVChMIiqWJ2oHaxwIVipANCh2Utw2g#v=onepage&q=%22Alfie%20was%20an%20organizer%22&f=false in Orange Coast Magazine (November 1990), pp. 233–234 Other Topics

Life, Dreams, Spring, Sun

“I'm very happy. Very happy. This is a great honor. The only thing I would trade this for is a pennant. This is the first year a manager made me feel like I wanted to keep going all the time. In 1965 he told me I'd hit.325 when I was sick with malaria and batting about.270. Last spring he told me he wanted me to hit 25 home runs and drive in 100 runs. He made me feel I belonged. He did the job. Maybe he isn't the best manager in the game but he works hard. He made us what we are. Got to give him credit. I had my best year for Walker. So did a lot of others.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "The Scorebaord: Pride Drives Clemente" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Z0sqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pk8EAAAAIBAJ&pg=5301,452323 by Les Biederman, in The Pittsburgh Press (Wednesday, November 16, 1966), p. 87 Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1966</big>

Happiness, Feeling, Home, Game

“Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, water-bugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud-turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb, brooks to wade in, water-lilies, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hay-fields, pine-cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, huckleberries and hornets and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of his education.
By being well acquainted with all these they come into most intimate harmony with nature, whose lessons are, of course, natural and wholesome.”

Luther Burbank (1849–1926) American botanist, horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science

p, 125
The Training of the Human Plant (1907)

Education, Nature, Tree, Water

“The orders resting on BATS were typically just the 100-share minimum required for an order to be at the front of any price queue, as their only purpose was to tease information out of investors. The HFT firms posted these tiny orders on BATS—orders to buy or sell 100 shares of basically every stock traded in the U. S. market—not because they actually wanted to buy and sell the stocks but because they wanted to find out what investors wanted to buy and sell before they did it. BATS, unsurprisingly, had been created by high-frequency traders.”

Michael Lewis book Flash Boys

Source: Flash Boys (2014), p. 73

“Going to tell you something, Hank. Hand me that bat. Now I'm going to show you the whole secret of how I hit those home runs. Only fellow I ever told it to was Lou Gehrig, when poor Lou first came up to the Yanks and Miller Huggins was trying to make a left-field hitter out of him. Look. See how this grip makes your wrist break at the right moment? Throws the whole weight of the bat into the ball. With this grip, you've just got to follow through. I kept it a secret a long time.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

Speaking with Hank Greenberg on Sunday, February 23, 1947; as quoted in "Tips From the Bambino: Ruth Reveals Hitting Secret to Greenberg; Convalescing Babe Congratulates Hank On Decision to Play" by Bob Considine (INS), in The Philadelphia Inquirer (February 25, 1947)

Secret, Home, Time

“I was not trying to be smart when I did that. I was trying to tell them that they could do whatever they want. The fans of Pittsburgh have cheered me a lot through the years. There’s always a first time for booing. But I don’t say to hell with the fans because of this. I am not swinging the bat the way I should. It is just one of those things. I am not the way I should be. I do not feel sure when I swing. I am trying to adjust so that I will swing well even though my shoulder still hurts. If a player doesn’t try hard, he deserves to be booed. I try hard. Maybe I was booed today because I have not played that bad before.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in “Clemente Still Loves Pirate Fans” https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=kWwqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VlAEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3630%2C5689009 by Bill Christine, in The Pittsburgh Press (Monday, April 14, 1969), p. 32 Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1969</big>

Way, Feeling, Hell, Time

“I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.”

W. Somerset Maugham book Of Human Bondage

Source: Of Human Bondage (1915), Ch. 52

“There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place,
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile on Casey's face,
And when responding to the cheers he lightly of his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt, 't was Casey at the bat.”

Ernest Thayer Casey at the Bat

Source: Casey at the Bat, Lines 21-24.

Smile

“The wonders of nature, she learned, from wing of bee to sonar of bat to eyeball of baby, were not so much perfect machines as adequate contraptions. If nature bespoke a mind, it was a confused and inchoate one, a mind incapable of locating the optic nerve on the correct side of the retina, a mind unable to accomplish much of anything without resort to jerry-building and extinction.”

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 15 (p. 254)

Nature, Learning, Bee, Baby

“They pay for their ticket, let them do what they want to do. I get mad. One of these days, I’ll leave my uniform on the field and keep on walking. If I don’t hustle or something like that, I’d say that it would be good for me to be booed. The problem with me is hitting. You hit.280, it’s a pretty good average. But I used to hit.350, so.280 is not good enough. A lot of times in my career, I play when I shouldn’t play. I say as long as I can run and swing a bat, I play. That was my biggest mistake. One time I play with a shoulder – it hurts so bad, I can’t lift it. I hit into a double play. Then they hit a ball to the outfield and I can’t bend down to pick it up, so they boo me. The season start, I hurt my finger the last weekend of spring training. I couldn’t grip the bat right and I was trying to pull everything. They would like for you to start every year from the beginning, right on top, boom, boom, boom. Now I start a season a little bit slowly, so they boo.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in ".280 Not Good Enough: Clemente's Bat Answers Boos" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=TpcuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=kKEFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2309%2C1919830 by Ian McDonald, in The Montreal Gazette (Friday, May 21, 1971), p. 17 Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>

Spring, Problem, Time, Hurt

“A ball bat is a wondrous weapon.”

Ty Cobb (1886–1961) American baseball player

Source: My Life In Baseball : The True Record (1961), Ch. 5 : "Bugs" — That First Bitter Series — $5000 or Bust, p. 81

“He's very arrogant, he's very aggressive when he fields, and when he bats as well. He's just a very aggressive person.”

Lendl Simmons (1985) West Indian cricketer

Lendl Simmons after winning the man of the match of West Indies' victory over India in the ICC World Twenty20 2016 semi-final, expressing on the arrogancy of Virat Kohli that motivated him to play a match-winning knock in Mumbai. He quoted it to Espncricinfo 'Very arrogant' Virat Kohli motivated me to knock India out of World T20: Lendl Simmons http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/16019444/lendl-simmons-talks-playing-t20-west-indies-franchises-world 7 June, 2016 Context: When he (Virat Kohli) fielded, he said something to me, and I said to myself, 'I'm going to show you you're not the only good batsman.' That's the way he is. He's very arrogant, he's very aggressive when he fields, and when he bats as well. He's just a very aggressive person. Those things motivate our players and it certainly motivated me. That really urged me to bat the way I did - to show him that he's not the only one who can do it. That played a big role.

Personality

“Even though the eagle,
King of birds,
Can with his powerful sight
Gaze steadfastly upon
The brightness of the sun;
Yet do the weaker eyes of the bat
Fail and falter in the same.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Twelve Beguines

Bird, Sun

“Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the rose is blown.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

Part I, section xxii, stanza 1
Maud; A Monodrama (1855)

Night

“I'm so goth I crap bats.”

Kerry Jackson

Radio From Hell (November 1, 2006)

“I never smile when I have a bat in my hands. That's when you've got to be serious.”

Hank Aaron (1934) Retired American baseball player

As quoted in the July 31, 1956 issue of The Milwaukee Journal; reproduced in Baseball's Greatest Quotations : An Illustrated Treasury of Baseball Quotations and Historical Lore https://books.google.com/books?id=468IU6sa2VYC&pg=PA2&dq=%22I+never+smile+when+I+have+a+bat+in+my+hands%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi74bmMysjVAhWoz4MKHfK7AmsQ6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q=%22I%20never%20smile%20when%20I%20have%20a%20bat%20in%20my%20hands%22&f=false (2009) by Paul Dickson, p. 2 Context: I never smile when I have a bat in my hands. That's when you've got to be serious. When I get out on the field, nothing's a joke to me. I don't feel like I should walk around with a smile on my face.

Smile

“And the last thing I see is my heart,
Still beating,
Breaking out of my body
And flying away
Like a bat out of Hell.”

Jim Steinman (1947) American musician

Bat out of Hell (1977), Bat out of Hell (song)
Context: Then I'm dying at the bottom of a pit in the blazing sun
All torn and twisted at the foot of a burning bike
And I think somebody somewhere must be tolling a bell
And the last thing I see is my heart,
Still beating,
Breaking out of my body
And flying away
Like a bat out of Hell.

Hell, Heart, Flying

“Like a bat out of Hell
I'll be gone when the morning comes.”

Jim Steinman (1947) American musician

Bat out of Hell (1977), Bat out of Hell (song)
Context: Like a bat out of Hell
I'll be gone when the morning comes.
But when the day is done
And the sun goes down
And the moonlight's shining through
Then like a sinner before the gates of heaven
I'll come crawling on back to you.

Hell

“Apart from his artistry, what stands out about his batting is his hunger for big scores, most apparent in his record 624-run partnership with Kumar Sangakkara, but also in the regularity with which he notches up Test double-hundreds”

Mahela Jayawardene (1977) Former Sri Lankan cricketer

S Rajesh and ESPNcricinfo staff on Mahela Jayawardene, quoted on ESPN Cricket Info, "Mahela Jayawardene" http://www.espncricinfo.com/srilanka/content/player/49289.html Quote Context: A prolific, elegant and utterly classy batsman with a huge appetite for runs, and a calm yet authoritative captain - those are the qualities that best describe Mahela Jayawardene. His sheer quality as a batsman was never in doubt even when he just entered the international scene, but for Jayawardene the biggest challenge has been to justify all the early hype. With over 10,000 runs in both Tests and ODIs - and a captaincy stint that included a World Cup final appearance - it can safely be said that he has met that challenge more than adequately. Blessed with excellent hand-eye coordination and a fine technique, Jayawardene scores his runs all around the wicket. Among his favourite strokes are the languid cover-drive - often with minimal footwork but precise placement and timing - and the wristy flick off his legs, but there are several others he plays with equal felicity. The most memorable are the cuts and dabs he plays behind the stumps, mostly off spinners, but also against quick bowling, when bat makes contact with ball delightfully late. Apart from his artistry, what stands out about his batting is his hunger for big scores, most apparent in his record 624-run partnership with Kumar Sangakkara, but also in the regularity with which he notches up Test double-hundreds. And his century against Zimbabwe in the World Twenty20 in 2010 was a shining example of traditional methods succeeding in a new format. Jayawardene is easily one of the most elegant batsmen of his generation, but the major drawback in his career is his relative lack of success in overseas conditions. His averages in Australia, England, South Africa and New Zealand are all less than 35, but at home he averages more than 60. In the second half of his career, Jayawardene grew into an astute captain who read the game well and wasn't afraid to take risks. Under him, Sri Lanka shed their diffident approach, winning Tests in England and New Zealand, and - in what was Jayawardene's greatest achievement as captain - reached the final of the 2007 World Cup. He quit captaincy in February 2009, but agreed to a second stint, taking over from Tillakaratne Dilshan after the tour to South Africa in 2011-12, but resigned again after a year, handing the reins to Angelo Mathews. His limited overs batting has improved with age, and an increasing stroke repertoire has seen Jayawardene become almost as impressive an innovator at the crease, as he is a technician. An unbeaten 103 from 88 balls in the 2011 World Cup final made plain his limited overs prowess, and marked him out as a big-match player, having already made a century in the semi-final of the same tournament four years ago.

Hunger, Partnership

“He insisted the other players allow me to take batting practice and he helped me. He put a bat behind my foot and made sure I didn't drag my foot. Willie Mays also helped me. He told me not to allow the pitchers to show me up. He suggested I get mean and if the pitchers knocked me down, get up and hit the ball. Show them.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As paraphrased and quoted in "The Scoreboard: Clemente's Only Regret? One Pennant" by Les Biederman, in The Pittsburgh Press (Sunday, March 31, 1968), Sec. 4, Pg. 3
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1968</big>
Context: The best advice and most help he ever received came from Buster Clarkson, an American player, when he was in Puerto Rico."I played for his team and I was just a kid," Clemente recalled. "He insisted the other players allow me to take batting practice and he helped me. He put a bat behind my foot and made sure I didn't drag my foot. Willie Mays also helped me. He told me not to allow the pitchers to show me up. He suggested I get mean and if the pitchers knocked me down, get up and hit the ball. Show them."

Help

“I hit it good and thought it was going over the wall when it left my bat,”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted and paraphrased in "Clemente Shows He's Bat-Man: Hitting Mets Like Robbin' for Roberto" by Les Biederman, in The Pittsburgh Press (Monday, May 2, 1966), p. 35
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1966</big>
Context: "I hit it good and thought it was going over the wall when it left my bat," he observed. Clemente also said this is the fifth time he has hit a ball that was within inches of clearing the fence at the 436-foot sign—two against the Dodgers and two against the Braves.

“The Platonic doctrine of Ideas has been, in all ages, the derision of the vulgar, and the admiration of the wife. Indeed, if we consider that ideas are the most sublime objects of speculation, and that their nature is no less bright in itself, than difficult to investigate, this opposition in the conduct of mankind will be natural and necessary; for, from our connection with a material nature, our intellectual eye, previous to the irradiations of science, is as ill adapted to objects the most splendid of all, "as the eyes of bats to the light of day."”

Proclus (412–485) Greek philosopher

"A Dissertation on the Doctrine of Ideas, &c." Footnote: see second book of Aristotle's Metaphysics.
The Philosophical and Mathematical Commentaries of Proclus on the First Book of Euclid's Elements Vol. 1 (1788)

Age, Idea, Nature, Light